


Sour Cherry

by gutsforgarters



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: Age Difference, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, First Time, Kate Fuller/Seth Gecko's Mexican Honeymoon, Older Man/Younger Woman, Post-Season/Series 01, Smut, Unsafe Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-03-13 21:57:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 32,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18949450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gutsforgarters/pseuds/gutsforgarters
Summary: "Let me get this straight. You need somebody to stick their thumb in your cherry pie, and you want me to do the honors?"Culebras are drawn to Kate because they can smell the innocence on her. There's an easy enough fix for that—or there should be, anyway. Turns out there's more to purity than never getting past first base.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic started off as yet another "Culebras want to eat Kate because she's a virgin so obviously something needs to be done about that" story but turned into more of a subversion of that trope, in part because I'm critical of virginity as a concept, and in part because I think that Kate's "purity" isn't so much a physical thing as it is a spiritual. 
> 
> We're picking up right where Season 1 left off, so please be aware that Kate's still seventeen in this.
> 
> [OST](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1oAOMhK0VcFGI3s1XEuZ1Z?si=STH2Uw8aSCaLTsjhKTASYg).

Everything about the motel screams _tourist trap_ , from the noxious green roof to the exterior stucco walls that are the precise color of liquid Pepto-Bismol—there’s even a little plastic oasis flourishing out front next to the vacancy sign like the owners didn’t think the color scheme alone was enough to attract attention. All told, it’s one of the ugliest places Kate’s ever stayed at, but her standards had dropped to subterranean levels sometime within the last twenty-four hours. So long as the place isn’t staffed by bloodsucking monsters, she’ll take it.

She tears her eyes away from the motel and faces front again just as a bird flies by overhead and craps on the Corvette’s hood. Seth’s not going to be happy about that. Seth, who told Kate to wait in the car while he got them a room, possibly because she looks like she just stepped off the set of a low-budget slasher flick (not inaccurate), and possibly because he doesn’t want to draw undue attention by waltzing into the motel lobby with a teenage girl and no luggage.

Kate contemplates the white smear of poop, then leans forward to squint at the console, trying to find the button that will activate the convertible roof. Getting bird crap in her hair would just be insult to injury at this point.

She gives up after a couple minutes of fruitless searching, though, and starts fiddling with the radio for something to do with her restless hands. They’re close enough to the border to get some fuzzy Texas stations, but Kate makes a face when a DJ on the only clear English-language station introduces Vampire Weekend’s new single.

Nope.

She goes back to mashing buttons, pausing at what sounds like a news broadcast. Her Spanish is decent, but the man on the radio is speaking way too fast for her to pick up much of his meaning—until she hears the words _los hermanos Gecko_ , that is.  

Kate listens long enough to ascertain that no one’s seen hide nor hair of the Geckos within the last twelve hours, then snaps off the radio and slumps in her seat. The leather upholstery is warm from the sun and sticks to her bare arms like a second skin she could stand to shed. She shuts her eyes and thinks about asking Seth to go out and pick up some sunblock once they’ve gotten settled—

“Hey.”

Kate’s gut gives an anxious little twinge, and she automatically wraps her fingers around her cross, but when she opens her eyes and tracks the voice to its source, she relaxes.

It’s just a girl. She’s got red hair and freckles, and she’s sitting in the backseat of a blue sedan parked two spaces over with the windows rolled down. Kate doesn’t know how she missed her when Seth pulled into their parking space earlier. Maybe she was lying down, taking a nap.

Kate remembers that she’s still got dry flecks of blood on her face and fans her hair over her shoulders, hoping to obscure as much of the carnage as she can.

“Hi.”

“You here on vacation?” the girl asks, scooting farther down the bench and closer to the window. She’s young—younger than Kate, even. Fifteen, probably. Maybe even fourteen or thirteen.

She’s also looking at Kate funny, and that’s when Kate realizes that she’s taking too long to answer. _You here on vacation?_

What a loaded question. Kate wants to laugh, but that would only weird the girl out even more.

“Yeah,” says Kate. It’s not really a lie; or at least, it wasn’t a lie twenty-four hours ago. “You?”

The other girl nods, frizzy ponytail bobbing like a horse’s tail. “Same. My parents are getting us a room right now.” She rolls her eyes. “Thought about hitchhiking my way back to the border while they were gone. We’re not even going to Cancún, how lame is that?”

“Pretty lame,” Kate says weakly.

“I swear, there’s nothing worse than being trapped in a car with your parents for twelve hours straight. It’s like _National Lampoon’s Vacation_ in here.”

Kate smiles thinly, and the girl lapses into silence for a couple seconds, only to turn back to Kate and say, “Hey that guy you were with—he your dad or something?”

The question is haltingly phrased, and Kate hears the subtext loud and clear: _Are you with him because you want to be? Do I need to ask my parents to call the police?_

“Uh, no,” says Kate. “He’s my brother.” The lie comes too easily, considering that she’s always stumbled over even the weakest of fibs. And, hey. Seth _did_ call her _sis_ back at the Titty Twister. Close enough, right?

“You guys Jehovah’s Witnesses or something?”

Kate blinks a ray of sun out of her eyes. “Huh?”

The girl shrugs her skinny shoulders. “The way your brother was dressed, he looked like one of those Jehovah’s Witnesses that go door to door trying to convert people.”

Kate can just _picture_ the look that would’ve crawled across Seth’s face had he been around to hear _that_ , and her lips curve into a thin smirk.

“No,” she says, trying to wrangle the look on her face before the girl can ask what’s so funny. “No, we’re Baptists.” Or at least, _she’s_ Baptist. Seth doesn’t strike her as a believer.

“Oh.”

“Kate.”

Kate sits up straight and swivels in her seat. Seth’s approaching the Corvette, keys jingling in his fist, his face as closed off as a shuttered window. So, the clerk didn’t recognize him from a wanted poster and call the Federal Police. That’s good. Kate was starting to worry.

It’s funny. Less than a day ago, Kate would’ve turned Seth into the police herself given half a chance. But now he’s all she has left, and the thought of him getting hauled away, of being stranded in Mexico all by herself—it makes her stomach pitch like she’s going to be sick.

“Hey.” Kate heaves the Corvette’s passenger door open and climbs out, sneakers getting scuffed on the blacktop. She glances at the redheaded girl, who’s staring at Seth with wide, avid eyes. “I was just—”

“Yeah, I really don’t give a shit.” Kate snaps her mouth shut, fumbling to catch the key Seth tosses at her. “C’mon, we’re on the first floor.”

“Alright.” Kate spares the girl in the sedan a parting look. “Maybe I’ll see you later?”

The girl tears her eyes away from Seth to smile tentatively at Kate. “Sure. Maybe we can hang out at the pool or something?”

“Sure,” Kate echoes. She waves awkwardly, then trots after Seth, who’s already halfway across the sparsely populated parking lot.

Kate said it just to say it, because it was the polite thing to do, but maybe she _will_ see the redheaded girl later. Honestly, she could use the distraction.

 

* * *

 

Their room’s as ugly as the motel’s exterior, with walls the color of an Orange Creamsicle and short bristly carpeting patterned with silhouettes of palm trees—in keeping with the oasis theme, Kate supposes. And ugly though it may be, it’s clean, there are two beds, and it’s got a working ceiling fan. It’s better than Kate was expecting, honestly.

Kate shuffles into the room and belly flops onto the bed nearest the door, legs spread eagled, fists snatching up handfuls of the white comforter. She takes a deep breath and smells bleach.

There’s the clunk of metal on wood—Seth setting his gun down on the table, Kate realizes. “Making friends already, huh?”

Kate rolls her eyes where Seth can’t see. “ _She_ talked to _me_. It’s not like I’m gonna see her again.”

“Just keep your distance, alright? We don’t got time for play dates.”

Kate thinks that they’ve got all the time in the world now, but she doesn’t say anything.

“You hungry?”

She probably should be. She hasn’t eaten since breakfast yesterday morning.

She shakes her head and makes a muffled “Nuh-uh” noise against the comforter.

Seth sighs. “Alright. Holler if you change your mind.”

Kate can feel him looking at her, so she just nods. Yeah. Whatever.

There’s Seth’s footsteps, muffled by the carpet, and then the whine of displaced springs as he collapses onto the other bed with a groan. Kate pillows her cheek on her folded arm and watches him as he scoops up the blocky remote and turns the TV on with a staticky click.

He’s stripped down to his slacks and undershirt, and Kate considers the two puncture wounds on his neck, ringed in rusty red. Looking at them reminds her that she’s still covered in blood, too, so she peels herself off the bed and slinks into the bathroom, pretending that she can’t feel the weight of Seth’s attention on her.

He’s probably wondering when she’ll break down.

Kate flicks the switch, but it takes a second for the lights to turn on like they need time to remember how to work. But then they do, and Kate flinches away from the girl in the mirror.

God, she looks worse than she feels, if such a thing were possible. Flecks of blood stick to her jaw and throat like dried flower petals, her hair’s in snarled witch’s knots, and her smeared eyeliner gives her the appearance of an insomniac raccoon. It’s a wonder the girl in the sedan didn’t call the police on sight.

Slowly, achingly, like somebody four times her age, Kate sheds her clothes until she’s down to her underwear—her bra’s gone yellow with sweat stains—and wonders if she should try soaking her jeans and tank top in the sink.

She doesn’t. She leaves them in a heap on the floor, grabbing the white bar of hand soap and scrubbing her skin until it glows pink. She should take an actual shower, but exhaustion has finally caught up to her, and she’s afraid that she’d fall asleep in the tub if she tried to stay on her feet for much longer.

When she’s as clean as she’s going to get, Kate pats herself dry and looks at her abandoned clothes, all piled up like snakeskin.

Does Seth own a lighter? Would he let her burn them?

She hits the lights and heads back to bed. She should probably be mortified, parading around in her underwear in front of a grown man she barely knows, but it’s dark in this room, curtains drawn, the strongest available light being that which comes off the TV. Seth’s never made Kate feel like he was interested in getting something like _that_ from her, anyway—and even if he was, Kate’s numbed past caring.

She just wants to sleep.

So she climbs into her temporary bed and slides beneath the cool blankets, dragging the comforter up over her head to block out the light coming off the television set. Seth’s watching the news. Probably interested in what the authorities have to say about him and his brother.

If only they knew.

And Kate isn’t clear on _when_ she starts crying, exactly, but she eventually becomes aware of the wet tracks on her cheeks and the choked-off hiccups catching in her throat. She tries to swallow the sounds, not wanting to irritate Seth into ditching her, but they rise like vomit, acidic and inevitable. Her heart’s clenched so tight it feels cramped.

Bedsprings creak. Seth’s probably gonna leave, probably wants to get away from her crying—

The bed dips. _Kate’s_ bed dips, mattress sagging beneath a body that probably weighs twice as much as hers. A solid arm slings itself across her waist, and a puff of humid breath brings out goosebumps on the nape of her neck.

Kate tenses, just on instinct, but then the arm around her waist crooks at the elbow and turns into a palm cupped around her upper arm, chafing at her skin through the comforter, and Seth’s murmuring, “It’s okay, honey. Just let it out, come on.”

Kate shudders from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, one hand emerging from her nest of blankets to clasp Seth’s wrist, clinging to him just like she had at the Titty Twister. He was always shielding her back there, always drawing her away from danger with a hand on her shoulder or an arm across her front. Maybe he felt responsible for her because he was the one who put her in danger in the first place. Maybe something about seeing a young girl in distress stirred his latent paternal instincts. Whatever _his_ motivations, she’d accepted his protection without a second thought, attaching herself to the strongest, most capable person in the room.

Maybe she has Stockholm Syndrome. Maybe that’s why she asked him if he wanted some company instead of driving off in her dad’s RV.

Seth’s thumb circuits her upper arm. His gun calluses scrape her skin.

No. It wasn’t Stockholm Syndrome. It was loneliness. Hers, and his.

They’re the same now.

Seth doesn’t say anything else, and eventually, Kate hiccups herself to sleep.

 

* * *

 

Kate wakes up to a gurgling stomach and a head that feels like it’s been padded with cotton. Her back’s cold, and the TV is silent. She blinks gummy eyes open and squints through the crack in the curtains; darkness, cut through with ribbons of harsh yellow light.

She rolls over and spins the digital clock around. It’s almost midnight.

She flips back the covers and scoots to the edge of the bed, brain gradually coming back online like a rebooted computer. Gun to her head. The border. The Titty Twister. Scott.

Dad.

Kate sniffles wetly, but she’s distracted from a second crying jag at the smell of something edible. She squints at the little dining table, but all she can really make out are a few featureless shapes.

She remembers, belatedly, that there are lamps in this room, and that they probably work. She smacks one on, blinking at the sudden outpouring of harsh white light, and stumbles half blind towards the table.

There’s a plastic shopping bag, listing to one side; another, smaller paper bag with grease stains soaking through the bottom; and a sealed bottle of water.

And a note.

_Went out. Don’t leave the room until I get back._

It’s not signed, and why should it be? Who else but Seth would be leaving her notes?

So, Seth left, came back, and left again while Kate was asleep. She must’ve been really out of it to not have noticed.

Yawning—yeah, still tired—Kate pokes through the paper bag. It’s stuffed to bursting with tacos and chicken quesadillas, and they’re still fairly warm. Kate likes Mexican food, and she woke up hungry, but her appetite has already fizzled out like it was never there. It’s not so much an absence of hunger as it is an absence of the ability to _feel_ hunger, like someone reached into her abdomen and scooped out her stomach.  

Thinking that she should stay hydrated, at least, Kate grabs the bottle of water and twists off the cap, taking slow sips as she shorts onehanded through the plastic shopping bag. Skinny jeans, a SpongeBob SquarePants t-shirt— _really_?—socks, a pack of cotton panties. No bra, possibly because Seth had no idea what size to get her.

And, again, Kate should be mortified, but she’s picturing Seth standing in front of a rack of frilly pink bras marketed for adolescent girls with a nonplussed frown on his face, trying to make sense of the sizing system, and despite everything, she wants to snicker.

She doesn’t. But she almost does.

She sets down the water bottle and starts ripping off tags, not even caring if she tears fabric too. The clothes fit, mostly: the jeans are a little tight in the hips, and the shirt’s a little loose, but they’re better than nothing.

She wonders where Seth got off to after dropping off her clothes and dinner. Is he out making a score?

Kate reads the note again, then crumples it in her fist and tosses it into the wastepaper basket. She roots through her old jeans until she comes up with her room key, then goes through the drawers in the nightstand until she finds a pencil with the motel’s name printed on the side.

It’s fairly pathetic, as weapons go, but it’s the best she’s got.

Tucking her key and her improvised stake into her pocket, Kate takes a deep breath, then steps out into the cool night.

She doesn’t even know what she wants to do until she spots the rectangular pool, glowing blue with underwater lights. She heads that way, bumping the gate open with her hip and pausing to take off her shoes, rolling up her socks and stuffing them into one sneaker. She drags up the hems of her jeans, then scoots to the shallow edge of the pool and dips her feet into the lukewarm water.

She shuts her eyes and tips her head back, feeling the cool clean air on her face, inhaling the weirdly attractive smell of chlorine. She can almost pretend that she’s still on vacation with her family, that she and Scott snuck past their sleeping dad to play in the pool after hours.

“Hey! You showed.”

The voice is young, female, and vaguely familiar. Kate opens her eyes and sees the redheaded girl from earlier approaching from the other side of the pool. She’s waving so enthusiastically it’s a wonder she doesn’t dislocate something, white arms practically glowing in the dark.

“Hey,” says Kate, waving back with far less fervor. “Your parents know you’re out?”

“What’re you, my mom?” the girl scoffs as she circles the pool and plops down next to Kate. “Your brother know _you’re_ out?”

Kate shrugs. “He’s not here.”

The girl kicks off her flip flops and dips her feet in the water. “You don’t know where?”

Kate shakes her head.

“You’re not worried about him?”

Is she worried that a culebra will bite him and leave her all on her own? Yeah. Aside from that, not really. “He can take care of himself.”

“Yeah. I can believe that.”

Kate nods mutely, as wordy as a bobblehead.

“Your name’s Kate, right? I’m Amy.”

Kate swirls her feet through the water. “Nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, you too. Hey, can I have your phone number? We should text. Are you on Facebook?”

“Uh.” Kate meets Amy’s eyes. They’re hazel. “I lost my phone.”

“Oh. That sucks.”

“Uh-huh.” Back to the pool again, to the water rippling in concentric rings around her ankles.

Amy’s hand settles on her shoulder, featherlight. Her skin’s as smooth as a baby’s. “Hey, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” says Kate, and there aren’t any tears standing in her eyes, so she must be.

Amy’s other hand curls around Kate’s jaw, and, okay. That’s kind of weird. Kate’s eyes flash to Amy’s face, and she opens her mouth to remind her that personal space is a thing, but the words get lost in her throat.

“I’m sorry,” says Amy, gold bleeding into her hazel irises. “I wasn’t gonna feed on you, but you just smell so _good_. Pure.”

 _Pure_. Kate’s brain fixates on that word for some reason, and it swirls around her head as Amy’s curved fangs come down from where they were folded into her palate.

“I can turn you when I’m finished,” Amy goes on, lisping around those fangs. “If you want. It’s not for everybody, but I think you’ll like it.”

Something in Kate snaps like a rubber band stretched to tearing, the word _pure_ still clanging around her skull like a bell, and she doesn’t think. She just _acts_ , grabbing Amy’s arm and digging in with her nails so hard she tears flesh, hurling her lighter body into the pool with a splash like a tidal wave that soaks through her new clothes. She scrambles to her feet, pulse thundering in her ears, but then something catches on her ankle and _pulls,_ and she collapses backwards onto her butt, tailbone singing a prelude to bruises.

“You _bitch_ ,” Amy hisses—really _hisses_ , like an angry snake, because that’s what she is, isn’t it? “You don’t wanna live forever? Fine. I’ll just drain you dry and leave you for the fucking buzzards. That what you want, you stupid _cunt_?”

It’s obscene, hearing a little girl talk like that, even when she wears the face of a monster, and Kate thinks of watching _The Exorcist_ during a sleepover, of hearing Mercedes McCambridge’s wrecked voice slither out of Linda Blair’s throat, of how it made every fine hair on Kate’s body stand straight up—

Amy tugs again, tugs hard enough that Kate fears her leg will pop out of its socket, and Kate scrambles at the concrete, breaking her fingernails and scraping her palms bloody. Amy’s nostrils flare at the smell of blood, and she _pulls_ one more time, and Kate goes sailing into the water with a shriek and a splash.  

Shit. _Shit_. Kate paddles backwards as Amy cuts through the water like a shark, hair plastered to her face, fangs bared. Kate shoves her fingers into her pocket, trying to yank the pencil free, thinking, _God, please, not this time, You got me out of the Twister alive, You can’t do this to me now._

“Kate! Get the fuck down!”

Easier said than done, but Kate takes a deep breath and ducks below the water’s surface, eyes stinging with chlorine. Amy’s body jerks once, twice, and red blooms around her body like clouds of octopus ink.

Kate breaks the surface with a cough, hacking up water and snot, and someone grabs her, hoisting her up by the wrist. Seth.

“What the fuck,” he’s saying. “These fuckers put out an APB on us or something? Jesus Christ.”

“I don’t—” God, her teeth are chattering so hard she can barely talk, which is weird. She’s soaked through, but it’s not like the water was that cold. “I don’t think she knew who we were. She was just—she was just hungry.”

“Yeah, and I’m guessing she wanted to order you to go.” Seth clicks his gun’s hammer into place and stuffs it into his waistband, starts rubbing at Kate’s arms as if to chafe the feeling back into her skin. “Fucking hell, Kate, I told you to stay in the goddamn room.”

Kate ignores him and twists a look over her shoulder. Amy’s floating face down in the water, a ragged wound each in her head and torso. More and more of the blue water is turning red.

“We should—”

“Go? Way ahead of you, sweetheart.” And Kate barely has time to snatch up her shoes before Seth’s wrapping an arm around her waist and scooping her to her feet, half carrying her as he hoofs it towards the parking lot.

“The room—”

“You leave anything important back there?”

Her old clothes, but she was gonna throw those out, anyway. “Just the food.”

“I can buy you more food. Right now, we gotta get the fuck outta here before someone calls the cops—if they haven’t already, Jesus.” Seth doesn’t even unlock the Corvette, just swings Kate up and over into the passenger seat. No one’s shouting after them, so that’s probably a good sign.

“Where _were_ you, anyway?” Kate demands as Seth jumps into the driver’s seat and plugs the key into the ignition.

Seth revs the engine and backs out of the parking space so fast the tires squeal. “Cheating at poker.”

Kate scrapes her wet hair back from her face and asks, “Are you a _good_ cheat?”

By way of reply, Seth wordlessly flings a leather satchel into her lap. Kate flips it open, eyes bugging like a cartoon character’s. The bag’s stuffed to bursting with wrinkled American dollars, pesos, even a freaking Rolex watch.

“Holy crap,” says Kate, and Seth’s laugh floats to her over the roar of the engine as they go peeling down the highway.

Kate hugs the satchel to her chest and cranes another look over her shoulder. She can’t see any flashing lights, but she swears she hears sirens.

And as those maybe-sirens grow ever more distant, something finally clicks into place. Why her brain sank teeth into the word _pure_ and worried at it like a dog with a bone.

That’s what Professor Tanner called her when he strapped her to an altar and pointed a knife at her heart. It’s why he wanted to sacrifice her in the first place.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kate tip toes closer to a sexual awakening, and Seth's blood pressure takes a critical hit, roughly in that order.

“Have you ever seen _The Exorcist_?”

Seth pauses mid-chew, cheek bulging around a bite of food, fork drooping in his fist until the tines hit the edge of his plate with a clink. “Kid, I really don’t wanna think about Linda Blair projectile vomiting pea soup while I’m trying to eat my breakfast.”

Yeah, and Kate doesn’t want to watch him talk with his mouth full while _she’s_ trying to eat _her_ breakfast. “Just answer the question. Please.”

Seth doesn’t do as Kate asks right away, watching her over the rim of his mug as he washes down his bite of omelet with a swig of black coffee. Kate pokes at her short tower of pancakes while she waits him out, the food she’s managed to get down sitting like a nest of stones in a stomach that still can’t quite bring itself to feel true hunger.

They drove through the night and into the early morning until they reached a medium-sized city that sprang up out of the plains like a monolith, and Seth had cruised down the misty streets until he found a restaurant that was open at this hour. Seth and Kate are the only customers in the IHOP aside from a family of groggy tourists and a woman in business casuals who keeps nodding off into her mug of coffee. Twice now, a server’s had to nudge her awake before she could scald herself.

“Yeah, I’ve seen it,” Seth says eventually, shearing off another slice of omelet and stuffing it into his mouth. “Have _you_?”

Kate nods, following Seth’s example and sawing off a hunk of pancake, spearing it on her fork and swirling it through a small lake of syrup before swallowing it in one bite. Her appetite’s shot to hell, sure, but her body knows what it needs, and she’s already feeling a little better for having eaten—less jittery, more alert.

Seth smirks at her. “You telling me your daddy was alright with you watching that kinda shit?”

Hearing Seth talk about her dad doesn’t feel like a gut punch so much as a sharp pinch to the fleshy part of her upper arm, and she flinches. Something flares in Seth’s eyes—panic, maybe, as his brain catches up with his mouth—but Kate breathes past the pain and says, “No, he wasn’t. I watched it during a sleepover at my friend Jessica’s house.” For a given value of _watched_ —mostly she just peered at the TV screen through netted fingers while Jessica accused her of being a big baby.

Yeah, well. She walked into a slaughterhouse and came out of it alive. Who’s the baby now, Jess?

Seth takes another mouthful of coffee, then sets down the mug with a tap of ceramic on linoleum. “Of course you did. What’s this got to do with anything, anyway? You just making conversation or what?”

No. No, she’s not. Kate glances around the IHOP’s interior—the woman in business casuals has her head pillowed on her folded arms, and the family of four’s muted conversation has escalated into an argument conducted in furious whispers—and sets down her fork before covering her leftovers with a napkin.

“Seeing her turn into one of—one of _them_ —” Kate falters. Breathes through it. Tries again. “It was like—it was like watching the little girl in the movie get possessed, you know? I’ve never seen one that young before. It was—”

“Fucked up?” Seth guesses. “Against all laws of God and man? Yeah. Tell me about it.”

Kate wraps unsteady fingers around her glass of orange juice and takes a sip, mouth puckering at the tangy flavor. It’s not as sweet as she likes it.

She makes herself take another drink, anyway.

“That’s the thing, though,” Seth goes on, surprising Kate by continuing the conversation when he gave her the strong impression that he just wanted to eat in peace. “That culebra wasn’t a _little girl_ , Kate. For all you know, she was alive when they built the fucking pyramids.”

Kate sets down her orange juice and fidgets her fingers against the sticky tabletop. “She was talking about _Vacation_. You know, the movie? Makes me think she grew up during the eighties. Like it was something she remembered from when she was alive.”

“Christ, who cares?” Seth raises his voice a little too loud and sets his mug down a little too hard, and Kate darts her eyes around the restaurant to make sure that he hasn’t drawn attention. “I don’t give a shit if her favorite movie was _The Last_ fucking _Unicorn_ or _The Dark_ goddamn _Crystal_. She wasn’t just some kid who liked movies when you met her, Kate. She was a fucking monster, and she ain’t getting no eulogy from _me_.”

By the time Seth finishes talking, punctuating his rant with a slurp of coffee, Kate has gotten the feeling that he’s not talking about Amy anymore.

“She was a _kid_ ,” Kate says. “Who would turn a _kid_?”

And, listen, Kate’s pretty self-aware when she wants to be. She knows that she’s not talking about Amy anymore either, at least not entirely.

A kid.

 _Scott_ was a kid, a gawky young boy who spoke fluent Elvish like a total dork and used _frack_ as a cuss word because their parents would make him put a dollar in the Swear Jar whenever they heard him using _real_ swear words. Just a sixteen-year-old boy, not much older than Amy would’ve been when she was turned, _whenever_ she was turned, and a monster bit him anyway.

“Hey, Kate. Katie.”

Kate blinks, becoming slowly aware of the blossoming cramp in her fingers, of the chill leaching into her palm.

She’s clutching her glass so tightly it would probably shatter if she were just a little bit stronger.

And Seth. Seth’s got one elbow braced on the tabletop, hand reaching for Kate like he was gonna literally shake her out of it if she didn’t resurface on her own. His full pink lips are stretched thin and bloodless.

“Sorry.” Kate unclenches her fingers one at a time until her hand goes limp and smacks off the tabletop. “Sorry, I was just—I just spaced out.”

Seth slowly lowers his hand until it mirrors Kate’s—palm on the tabletop, fingers fanned out. “Yeah,” he says, frown twisting into something infinitely more bitter than concern. “I used to know a guy who’d do that a lot, too. Didn’t end so well for him.”

“I’m not hearing voices in my head,” Kate mutters, edging towards petulant, “if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Hey.” Seth retrieves his fork and points it at Kate like the gun he once stuck in her face. “Watch your mouth.”

Kate lowers her gaze, not in submission, but in shame. Seth’s hurting too, same as her, and maybe she should _want_ to twist the knife in his wound after everything he’s put her through directly and indirectly, but she doesn’t. Can’t. Not when she can see the pain she’s feeling reflected in the stark lines of his face.

Kate breathes in through her mouth, out through her nose. “I think there might’ve been more of them somewhere. She said she was there with her parents.” And by _parents_ , she must’ve meant the culebras who turned her.

Seth flops back against the vinyl booth with a groan, ruffling his fingers through his short hair. He bought himself a change of clothes too while he was out, although they look much the same as his old: slacks, blazer, tie, the most marked difference being that his new shirt’s black instead of white. Fresh clean clothes, but they can’t disguise how exhausted he looks, stubble too thick, dark circles framing his eyes. No wonder he’s been all but mainlining caffeine.

“Fan-fucking-tastic,” he grumbles into the palm he scrubs down his face. “Just what we needed, more snakes gunning for our asses.”

Yeah, that sucks—to put it lightly—but at least they’ll know what to watch out for. Maybe, if Seth remembers what he saw in the motel’s lobby. “She said her parents were in the lobby, getting them a room. Do you remember what they looked like?”

Seth squints at her like she just started speaking in tongues. “The hell’re you talking about? There wasn’t anybody there but me and the clerk.”

“Oh. Well, maybe they were already finished up by the time you got there.” And they must’ve been wearing long-sleeved jackets and wide-brimmed hats, too, to be wandering around in the daytime like that. Amy was fine, but only because she stayed inside her shady sedan.

“Yeah, and maybe Undead Shirley Temple was bullshitting you, you ever think of that? She was probably trolling for Happy Meals, hanging out in the parking lot like that.”

Kate plants her elbow on the table—her momma would scold her if she were here to see that—and cups her jaw in her hand. Her skin still feels too cold where Amy touched her, like her fingers left a rim of frost behind.

“She said she wasn’t planning on eating me.”

“And you _believed_ her?”

Believed her or didn’t believe her, what does it matter when the end result was the same? Whether Amy planned it or not, she still went for Kate’s throat in the end. “She said she changed her mind about leaving me alone because…” She doesn’t want to say it. She really, _really_ doesn’t want to say it.

Seth drums his fingers on the tabletop. “Because what? Spit it out, kiddo.”

Kate’s fingers twitch, an involuntary spasm. “Because I. Because I smell good.”

Seth’s eyebrows wing up, and he leans forward in his seat until Kate can feel the warm gust of his breath on her face. He takes a deep, conspicuous sniff.

“Smell like BO and road dust to me, kid. Remind me to buy you a stick of clinical-strength deodorant, huh?”

Kate wrinkles her nose and leans away from him. “You could use a hot bath or two, yourself,” she retorts, but Seth just grins wolfishly at her as though to say, _You can do better than that, princess._

Jerk. Kidnapping aside, armed robbery aside, _murder_ aside, Seth Gecko is, above all else, a towering _jerk_.

Seth retreats from Kate’s personal bubble to spread his arms along the back of the booth, stretching like a cat. “Baby Culebra didn’t seem all that interested in me.”

Kate doesn’t know about _that_. She saw the way Amy looked at Seth. It’s probably the way _Kate_ would look at him if they didn’t have the history they do, if he was just some random hot guy on the street. Because Seth is, objectively and undeniably, hot.

Which is just _really_ unfortunate.

Anyway. Seth isn’t finished. “Guess I don’t smell as appetizing as you, huh, Kate?”

Yeah, guess so. Seth’s a lot of things—mostly a jerk—but he certainly isn’t _pure_.

There’s that word again.

There’s that _goddamn_ word.

“I’ve gotta go to the bathroom,” Kate mumbles, scooting down the bench and hopping to her feet before Seth can ask what’s gotten into her.

Part of her—a big part—doesn’t want to voluntarily take her eyes off of him, is still afraid that he’ll decide she’s more trouble than she’s worth—especially now that he knows that the very scent of her attracts snakes—and abandon her in an IHOP in Mexico with no money and no way of safely crossing the border.

But the part of her that’s driving her feet forwards doesn’t care.

The bathroom door bangs shut behind her, and Kate ignores the lone toilet in favor of going up to the sink and studying herself in the mirror like she had last night.

She looks younger than she really is with all her makeup washed off, but also much older, and even paler than usual. And her eyes—

She can’t really explain it, but her eyes are _different_ , somehow. Same color, same shape, but some indefinable thing about them has shifted.

And then it clicks.

They’re the same eyes you see in the faces of trauma survivors, of combat veterans, of battered wives. They’re the eyes of someone who’s seen far, far too much. Of someone who’s seen things that weren’t _meant_ to be seen.

The fluorescent overhead lights flicker, buzzing like a swarm of insects.

Kate’s throat constricts, squeezing shut as though pressed closed by the thick body of a coiling snake.

She grips the rim of the sink and hangs her head, greasy hair sliding forward to obscure the eyes that no longer fit her face.

_Pure._

The word pounds against the shell of her skull like a throbbing headache, beating in time with her pulse.

_Pure. Pure. Pure._

 

* * *

 

Seth uses some of the money he won cheating at poker to get them a room in a nice hotel. A room, not a suite, because, “We gotta watch our finances until I can make a good score, Kate. Once I do, you and me’ll be taking a one-way trip to the penthouse suite, and don’t you doubt it for a second, darlin’.”

It’s not the penthouse suite, but it _is_ much nicer than the tacky motel room they left behind. White walls, neutral color scheme, flat-screen TV nestled in a sleek black cabinet. The sliding glass door even opens up onto a balcony with a little round table and two chairs, although the view isn’t that great, seeing as their room overlooks the parking lot.

Seth jerks the curtains shut, then paces the length of the room and flops onto the bed nearest the door. He smacks one of the two bedside lamps on, then crosses his arms and points a considering look at Kate. “Alright, kiddo. Time to spill your guts. The hell’s been bugging you?”

Kate freezes, fingers clenching around the wad of money she was sorting through. She upended the satchel when they got here a few minutes ago and has been sorting the money into stacks since. She doesn’t know if it’ll all fit inside the room’s little electronic safe, but sorting the cash into dollars and pesos and then numbered denominations has been as good a distraction as any.  

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kate asks, shifting around on her bed to face Seth properly. “Are you seriously asking me that after everything that’s happened?”

“Yeah, I am. Something’s been up with you ever since we ditched that roach motel.”

Kate crumples the pesos in her clenched fist and says, voice slow and thick with sarcasm, “Oh, I don’t know. I was kidnapped and held hostage at gunpoint by you and your brother. I found out _vampires_ were real, and then my brother got turned into one. _Monsters_ keep trying to _eat me_.”

Seth shakes his head. “Don’t try to bullshit a bullshitter, kid. Sure, that shit’s bugging you, but you didn’t look like _this_ when you walked outta the Twister. Something else is up.”

Kate smooths out the bills she wrinkled and goes back to methodically sorting them into stacks. The Rolex lies off to one side, diamond face glinting in the lamplight. Kate wonders if Seth’s gonna keep it or pawn it.

“It’s none of your business,” she says.

“I’m the one who’s keeping you fed and clothed, kid. I think that makes it my business.”

So, what, he thinks he’s her dad now? Great. Kate’s hands lie empty in her lap now that she’s finished sorting the bills, fingers grasping thin air. “You’re not gonna let this one go, are you?”

“Nope,” says Seth. He sounds downright _cheerful_ about it.

Kate drops her face into her empty hands and rakes her fingers through her hair, nails slicking through the oil that’s clumped around the roots. It needs to be washed, like, _yesterday_.

“It’s embarrassing,” she mumbles, breath gusting off her palms and bouncing back to her face, stale and humid and smelling faintly of citrus. She also needs to brush her teeth. She should probably go do that.

“Even better,” says Seth, gleefully sadistic. Kate wants to sink through the Earth’s crust straight to hell.

She’s not doing this. She _can’t_ do this.

Socked feet whisper across the carpet, and then Kate’s mattress dips. She lifts her head to the sight of Seth knocking stacks of bills aside to make room at the foot of the bed, undoing all of Kate’s hard work.

“ _Hey_.”

“Hay is for horses.” Seth grabs Kate’s ankle and jiggles her leg like a toddler fussing for attention. “C’mon, kiddo. Spit it out.”

Kate jerks her leg out of Seth’s hold. Contemplates kicking him, but ultimately doesn’t.

Seth’s face turns severe. “Don’t make me tickle you.”

What is she, five? Kate glares at him from under her lashes, mutinous, and remains silent.

Seth spreads and hooks his fingers, inching them towards Kate’s flank.

Crap.

Scooting away from Seth until her back hits the pillows propped against the headboard, Kate draws her knees defensively up to her chest and says, “You remember how I told you that Amy thought I smelled good?”

“Amy. That the baby bloodsucker that tried to eat you?” Kate nods, chin bumping her knee. “Yeah, I remember. Why?”

 _Why_. Isn’t that the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. “She said I smelled…”

“Like sugar cookies? Apple pie? What?”

 _God, strike me dead._ “…Pure.”

Seth doesn’t laugh at her, at least. If anything, he looks kinda _thoughtful_ , eyes turned towards the ceiling, lower lip caught between his teeth. Alright. Okay. This isn’t as bad as Kate thought it would be.

Except, of course, it _is_. “Why, ’cause you’re a virgin?”

No convenient lightning bolts strike the hotel in that moment, which is just too bad. “ _God_ , do you have to say it like that?”

Seth braces his palms on the mattress and leans back, stretching out his legs until his feet come dangerously close to knocking into Kate’s ankles. “How the hell else d’you want me to say it? You haven’t cashed your v-card yet? Haven’t had your cherry popped? Haven’t—”

If Kate wasn’t determined _not_ to touch him for the duration of this conversation, she would physically slap a hand over his mouth. “Stop it.”

“Hey, you asked.”

“It was a _rhetorical question_.”

“So, what, are virgins a _delicacy_ or something? Like caviar for culebras?” Seth’s look turns thoughtful again. “Guess that makes sense. You’re always hearing about virgin sacrifices. Kinda figured it was all bullshit, though.”

 _Virgin sacrifice_. Kate flinches, and Seth’s sharp eyes catch the movement. “What?”

“Um.” Kate clears her throat. “About that.”

“ _Kate_.”

“Uh.” Kate wraps her arms around her legs and hugs them to her chest. “Back at the Twister. Professor Tanner, he, uh.”

“Yeah, I was wondering what happened to Professor Perv. He dead?”

“Mhmmm.”

“No loss there.”

It probably makes her a terrible person, but Kate vehemently agrees. She thinks she’s justified in feeling that way, considering.

“Ranger Gonzalez killed him.”

Seth whistles sharply. “That right? Dude really went full-on Rambo, huh?”

Maybe a little bit, but not in this particular instance. Not in the way Seth’s thinking. “He didn’t kill Tanner _just because_. Tanner was going to—”

Seth sits up straight, hands wrapping around his thighs and clenching, and the look on his face makes Kate shrink in on herself even though she knows it isn’t directed at _her_. “What? What the fuck did he do? He fucking touch you? Huh?”

Something hot and fierce and not altogether unpleasant twists in Kate’s chest. “He didn’t touch me. Not like that.” And Seth doesn’t relax, exactly, but the glint in his eyes gets moderately less homicidal. “He was gonna—he was in with the culebras. He was going to sacrifice me to them, but Ranger Gonzalez stopped him.”

The ensuing silence is thunderous, and Kate finally understands the meaning of that word. _Thunderous_ , as in the heavy, electric quality that permeates the air right before a storm. Kate feels it like a physical weight pressing her to the bed, and she’s mildly surprised when she doesn’t smell ozone.

“Well,” Seth says eventually, “at least Ranger Rick was good for something.”

Seth’s face is entirely closed off, but his eyes—

Kate thinks that, if Tanner weren’t already dead, Seth would hunt him down and kill him himself. Slowly.

That shouldn’t make her happy.

“He called me pure, too,” Kate whispers. “Virgin sacrifice, get it? He was gonna kill me and bleed me out and feed me to those _things_.”

“Fuck.” Seth fists his hands in his hair. “Jesus fuck.”

A stitch blooms in Kate’s chest, and her breath hitches, and she’s crying without actually crying, dry little sobs shuddering through her body. “I just—I wasn’t supposed to, you know? My parents told me that sex before marriage was a sin, and I didn’t wanna be a sinner. I didn’t want to go to hell.”

“Christ, Kate.”

Kate shakes her head, denim scraping her cheek. “I wanted to be _good_ , but being good’s gonna get me _killed_.”

“Hey. Kate. Look at me.”

Kate just shakes her head again, but Seth cups her jaw in his big warm hands, hauling her face gently up until she can’t help but look him in the eye. He tucks her hair behind her ears, thumbs framing her jaw, fingernails scratching tingling lines across her scalp.

“Hey. There she is.” Seth quirks a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Listen to me. I’m not gonna let them touch you, alright? I’m gonna watch out for you, same as I did at the Twister. No bumps or scrapes, remember?”

“I don’t—” Kate hiccups. “I’m—” _Scared_.

“Hey.” Seth shushes her, thumbs gliding up her jawline and along the arcs of her cheekbones. “Relax. I got you. That’s it, come on.” 

Seth must be used to calming people down, to talking them back from the edge, and Kate doesn’t know if he perfected that skill dealing with hysterical hostages during bank robberies or controlling his brother. Regardless, it’s working on her. Her breath’s evening out, her stuttering pulse is slowing.

Seth doesn’t let go of her even after she starts to calm down, possibly worried that she’ll start up again if he backs off too soon. Kate wouldn’t have expected a thief and a murderer to have such a deep capacity for gentleness, but that’s what he is right now. Gentle. Careful.

Kate peeks up at him. His eyes are half closed, lashes grazing his cheekbones, unfairly fluttery and thick in the way guys’ often are. His lips are slightly parted, a soft contrast to his hard jawline. They’re chapped.

And _awareness_ skates up Kate’s spine.

He’s close. He’s so close, and he _is_ objectively good looking, and Kate teased him about needing a bath earlier, but the truth is that he smells _good_. Wisps of cologne cling to his pulse points, and underneath of that there’s a deeper, headier musk that’s making Kate dizzy.

Maybe—

Oh, no. _No_. Are you _crazy_?

Yeah. Probably.

But she doesn’t wanna die, and she knows, deep in her bones, that those snakes won’t leave her alone so long as she smells _pure_. And it’s terrifying, but Seth’s been weirdly gentle with her from the start, and he might be a thief and a murderer, he might be a decade older than her _at least_ , but he’s all she’s got, and shared trauma has a weird way of making strangers feel like people you’ve known your whole life.

This isn’t right. It’s _not_. It was supposed to be Kyle, before he said those horrible things, and if not Kyle, then someone _like_ him. A nice God-fearing boy her own age who would tremble when he touched her, who would kiss her like he was afraid of startling her into flight.

 _Seth_ wouldn’t touch her like that, Kate thinks, and the thought makes something wind up tight and hot in the cradle of her pelvis. Seth wouldn’t kiss her like he was half afraid of her. Seth would pin her by the throat so she couldn’t get away. Seth would make sure that she didn’t _want_ to get away.

Kate blinks hard. Tries to think through the giddy bubble of heat rising in her stomach like an expanding balloon.

And, anyway, what does _supposed to_ mean anymore? Her mother was _supposed to_ make it out of that car crash alive. Scott wasn’t _supposed to_ get bitten by a monster. Kate wasn’t _supposed_ _to_ drive a stake through her dad’s heart before he could sprout claws and fangs.

 _Wrong_ , the part of her that’s still that innocent girl from Bethel whispers. _It’s wrong._

It _is_ wrong, but Kate’s selfish and _scared_ , and she doesn’t want to die.

She fought too hard at the Twister just to lose _now_.

And she knows how to do _this_ , at least. She knows to ease her legs down to one side and tilt her torso forward. She knows to lift her chin and shutter her eyelids and find Seth’s mouth by following the gust of his breath—

“ _Whoa_.” The hands on her face drop to her shoulders and force her back against the pillows with a thump. “The hell do you think you’re doing?”

 _What’s it look like?_ Kate wants to snark, but she’s too mortified to look him in the face, let alone speak.

“Hey. It wasn’t a rhetorical question. Answer me.”

Kate covers her face with her hands. Her cheeks are scalding to the touch. “I really don’t want to.”

“That right? ’Cause I _need_ you to. I need you to tell me that you didn’t just try to put the moves on me.”

Alright. Easy escape hatch. Curling her legs up against her chest again, trying to appear as small as possible, Kate mumbles, “I wasn’t putting the moves on you.”

“Yeah, I don’t believe you.” Shit. Of course it was a trap. “I can follow simple logic, sweetheart. So, let me get this straight. Let me just make sure that I’m not reading you wrong. You need somebody to stick their thumb in your cherry pie, and you want me to do the honors, is that it?”

“Plum pie.”

“ _What_?”

Kate peeks at Seth through her fingers like his face is a TV screen and it’s playing _The Exorcist_. “Little Jack Horner stuck his thumb in a _plum_ pie. You know, in the nursery rhyme?”

“Christ, I don’t care. I am not gonna—kid, how old even _are_ you?”

Kate drops her hands and sticks out her chin, clinging to indignation like it’s a raft in a sea of embarrassment. “Seventeen.”

Seth squints at her like he thinks she’s lying. “You look a lot younger.”

“I’d let you card me, but I left my license in the RV.”

“Alright, alright. Don’t get snarky.” Seth grips his nose between his thumb and forefinger. Kate never thought that people actually did that, but apparently Seth does. “I’m not—I’m not gonna take your fucking _virginity_ , Kate, okay? I don’t think it’d make much of a difference even if I _did_.”

Kate crosses her arms. “Why?”

“ _Why_? ’Cause those culebras at the Twister came after me fangs a-blazing, for one thing, and I’m sure as shit not a virgin. And ’cause you look like an easy target, for another. It doesn’t matter whether or not you’ve made the beast with two backs, alright? If they’re hungry enough, they’re gonna come for you.”  

Kate drops her eyes. Chews on her lower lip. “It doesn’t have to be you.”

“ _Excuse_ me?” Seth leans in close and makes a show of cupping his hand around the shell of his ear. “The _fuck_ did you just say? Because it sounded like you’re planning on going out and losing it to some rando. I gotta have wax in my ears, because no way in hell did I hear you right.”

“Well, if you won’t do it—”

“Nope. Nah-ah.” Seth points his finger in Kate’s face, and she slaps it away. “Not happening. You’re not doing that.”

“Why not?”

“’Cause I’ll break the poor fucker’s neck, that’s why.”

Coming from anyone but Seth, that might sound like an idle threat. “You _control freak_. Who gave you the right to tell me what to do?”

“ _You_ gave me the right when you got in that car with me.” Seth climbs off the bed and snatches up a wad of cash. “I’m the adult. That puts me in charge.”

 _Control. Freak._ “Where’re you going?”

Seth checks his gun’s chamber, then tucks it into his waistband. “ _I_ am going down to the bar to day drink, because I have fucking _earned it_. You can come with, or you can stay here. I don’t really give a shit what you do, so long as you don’t go out and give it up to some random two-pump chump.”

 _Two-pump chump?_ Kate wonders, then flushes when the meaning clicks into place. Her voice is all bravado when she says, “And if I _do_?”

Seth smiles thinly and taps the butt of his gun. “Then I’ll make good on shooting out the bastard’s kneecaps.”

“Thought you said you would break his neck.”

“I can do both.”

Kate should stay in the room. She’s still humiliated from Seth’s rejection, skin itching like it’s covered in bug bites, but honestly? For the most part, she’s just _relieved_.   

Seth did her a favor by turning her down. Even through the red haze of her embarrassment, Kate can see that.

She sighs and scoots off the bed. “Let me put the money in the safe first.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seth and Kate rack up their dry-cleaning bill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains non-explicit allusions to sexual assault. If you can watch the show, you should be fine, but please tread carefully.

Seth is restless.

On the surface, he’s at ease, cracking rude jokes and rifling through their stacks of money—at one point, Kate asks him why he doesn’t just roll around in it, to which Seth replies that he never rolls around in money unless he’s got someone to roll around in it _with_. Kate watches his full lips form the words and flushes down to the bone, fighting not to linger on the vivid images they conjure and failing abysmally.

Seth takes some of the money that he _isn’t_ rolling around in and buys Kate a beaded white cocktail dress and matching ballet flats, telling her that he’s reserved them a table in the hotel’s swanky restaurant. He flirts shamelessly with the waitress and lets Kate sip from his glass of red wine, laughing in her face when her mouth puckers at the bitter tang of it, then laughing even harder when she compares it to sour grape juice.

There’s something stirring, though, beneath Seth’s easy, dimpled smiles. It’s in the way his eyes dart around the dimly lit restaurant as though he can’t help but instinctively case the joint, in the way they linger on the wealthier-looking diners like he’s gauging if it’d be worth it to rob them.

There’s a fox in the hen coop and these poor stupid people don’t even _know_ it.  

Kate doesn’t think that Seth can help himself, is the thing. They’ve got plenty of money left, even with the way Seth’s been spending it, but Kate doesn’t think that it’s about the money. Or at least, it’s not _just_ about the money.

“Alright.” Kate sets down the glass of ice water she used to rinse the taste of wine from her mouth and points her fork accusingly at Seth. “Just say it already.”

Seth swallows a hearty bite of steak and wipes his mouth clean with his white linen napkin, leaving behind a damp spot in the shape of his mouth. “Say what?”

Kate looks around—discreetly, she hopes. It’s a slow night at the restaurant, and no one’s seated in their vicinity, but some people have sharp ears and a penchant for eavesdropping. What’s more, Kate’s fairly certain that their server has the ability to actually, literally teleport. Finishing her sweep, Kate leans as far across the table as she can without planting her elbows on it—she’s never been to a restaurant this nice before, not even for her parents’ anniversary dinners, but she knows enough to be highly conscious of her table manners—and pitches her voice to a whisper.

“You wanna make a score. I can tell.”

“Oh, can you?” Seth wraps his fingers around the stem of his wineglass and takes a deep gulp. Aren’t you supposed to roll it around in your mouth or something before you swallow it? Savor the bouquet? “You a mind reader now, princess?”

No, that would be his brother, but Kate knows better than to say so out loud. “You’ve been acting fidgety.”

“ _Fidgety_?” Seth parrots. “What am I, five?”

Sometimes he acts like it. “No, but I saw the way you were looking at that lady over there. The one with the opal necklace?”

Seth takes another deep pull of wine, throat muscles working distractingly. “Maybe I was just looking at her tits.”

“Don’t be gross,” Kate scolds him, hoping that he’ll chalk up the flush in her cheeks to the wine in her system. It would’ve made her uncomfortable to hear him talk that way _before_ , and now that she’s _aware_ of him in a way she wasn’t until quite recently, the feeling’s amplified about tenfold. She can’t help but wonder how she’d feel if he talked about _her_ breasts like that, and then she has to take a gulp of ice water to cool the wash of heat bleeding from her throat to her stomach.

“The hell do I need to make a score for?” Seth asks her, apparently oblivious to her inner conflict—which, thank God. “Kate, with the price that Rolex went for, we’re set for the next month at least. Two months, even, if we’re real fucking frugal.”

Kate eyes Seth’s wineglass. “You call a four-hundred-dollar bottle of wine _frugal_?”

“Honey, if you think that’s bad, you should see what a good bottle of DRC goes for.”

“I don’t wanna know,” Kate mumbles to the tune of Seth’s laughter.

But then he sobers, tapping his blunt nails against the tablecloth and scanning Kate’s face with too-perceptive eyes. “No, but seriously. What makes you think I’m looking for a job? C’mon, Katie. Share with the class.”

“’Cause you wanna live in the penthouse suite?” Kate guesses, and Seth smirks, but that wasn’t the answer he was looking for. Kate can tell.

He really wants to know what she’s thinking.

Alright. Fine. Kate pleats the tablecloth between her fingers, then smooths out the wrinkles of her own creation. “Because it’s not about the money. I mean, it’s not _just_ about the money.”

Seth leans back in his chair. Gives Kate a skeptical onceover. “The hell else would it be about?”

Kate bites down on the inside of her cheek, hard enough to pinch but not hard enough to draw blood. She’s seen enough blood to last her a lifetime. Buckets of it. Rivers of it.

What was she saying?

Oh, right.

“It’s about winning, isn’t it? It’s about taking someone’s stuff when they can’t do anything to stop you. It’s about walking away without getting caught.”

Seth cocks his head, dark eyes glimmering at Kate from beneath the thick tangle of his lashes. “Perceptive little shit, aren’t you?”

Kate has to bite down on the inside of her cheek again, has to ground herself with a muted shock of pain, because if she doesn’t, she’ll stay frozen, mute, a mouse cornered by a cobra. God, but she wishes he’d stop looking at her like that.

(She also wishes that he wouldn’t.)

Making a show of rolling her eyes, Kate says, a little too breathlessly, “Don’t call me that.”

“Jesus.” Seth leans back in his seat, feet knocking into Kate’s as he stretches out his legs. He straightens back up a second later, but he doesn’t move, toes overlapping Kate’s, pinning her feet to the floor.

_Seth would pin her by the throat so she couldn’t get away._

_Seth would make sure that she didn’t_ want _to get away._

“I came out to eat my weight in prime-cut steak,” Seth’s saying, “not get fucking psychoanalyzed to hell and back over dinner.”

Kate shrugs. She dips her chin, casts a deliberate shadow over her throbbing pulse points. “You asked.”

“Yeah. Guess I did.”

Kate remembers that she’s still got food on her plate and endeavors to finish it. Her appetite has slowly returned to normal over the last two days, at least, although her stomach still knots up whenever she smells red meat. “I could help, you know.”

Seth doesn’t reject her outright, which is encouraging—but he doesn’t prompt her to elaborate, which isn’t. He just sips his wine, slower than he had before, and studies Kate from under those fluttery eyelashes of his.

Kate noticed Seth’s eyelashes well before she made a halfhearted stab at seducing him. She noticed them when he dragged her chair flush with his, got in her face, and ordered her to _confess_ with tequila on his breath and a mean smile lurking on his mouth.

No. Not _mean_. _Teasing_. Maybe edging _towards_ mean, maybe a slow step or two away from it, but not quite there yet. And that—that’s another reason why it’s best that Seth didn’t want to have sex with her. He’d probably get off on toying with her if they _did_ do it. Demand that she _confess_ to how badly she wanted him while he ran his tongue over breasts—no, Seth wouldn't call them _breasts;_  he'd call them her _tits_ —

_Concentrate, you space case._

Kate takes another hasty gulp of water, kind of wishing that she could just upend the entire glass over her _head_. “You—you want me to make myself useful, don’t you? _I_ want to make myself useful.”

Seth sets down his wineglass. “Let me ask you something,” he says. “And I want you to think this over real hard before you answer me, sweetheart. You’re a good Christian girl. You got it in you to point a gun at someone’s head with the intent of using it? Huh?”

Kate opens her mouth, but Seth holds up a hand, staying her.

“Follow-up question: could _you_ stand aside while _I_ pointed a gun at someone? It’s not like I get off on killing people, but if I have to, I will. I’ve done it before. You know that.”

Yeah. She knows it. _Good men and true_ , remember? “I took down a culebra at the Twister. I was gonna kill Amy.”

The amusement on Seth’s face is so _clearly_ at Kate’s expense that she wants to squirm. “Snakes don’t count, sweetheart. I’m talking beating hearts, here. I’m talking people like _you_. Could you kill them if I told you to? Could you put a bullet in some soccer mom’s skull?”

Bile bubbles up in Kate’s stomach. So much for finishing her food. “What if they—what if they _weren’t_ innocent? What if we stole from people who deserved it?”

“What, like Robin Hood?” Seth scoffs. “I like stealing from rich old bastards who got it coming as much as the next guy, Kate, but I don’t do this shit to balance the scales of _justice_ or whatever the hell else you’re thinking. Besides, would it really make a difference to you? Murder’s murder, ain’t it?”

 _Murder’s murder._ Kate’s never killed a human being with her own two hands, but she stood by and watched while Ranger Gonzalez gutted Professor Tanner like a fish. Does that count, a sin by complicity? Or is it okay because _Tanner_ was going to kill _her_? Self-defense isn’t murder, right?

Kate looks at the pristine white tablecloth and thinks, once again, of _purity_.

“If you don’t want my help, just say so.”

Seth lays his hand on top of Kate’s. His palm is wide and warm and entirely engulfs hers. His fingers circle her wrist and pin it to the table, same as his feet are pinning hers.

Seth sweeps his thumb over Kate’s carpal bones. “Never said I didn’t want it.”

Kate tears her eyes away from their stacked hands and gapes up at Seth. He’s smiling, dimples cutting deep tracks in his cheeks.

“What did you—what did you have in mind?”

Seth points at Kate’s food. “Eat your chicken.”

“But—”

Seth squeezes her hand. “Eat, Kate. Then we’ll talk.”

 

* * *

 

Kate claims a stool at the serpentine bar and orders a virgin margarita with a sugary sweet smile on her face. The bartender’s lips pucker with what might be suppressed amusement, but she mixes Kate’s drink without comment and sets it down in front of her with the sincere-sounding wish that she enjoy. Kate thanks her and idly licks a patch of salt off the rim, glancing around the bar’s interior with what she hopes looks like casual interest.

It’s fairly upscale—Seth made sure of that. Of course, the hotel’s bar is upscale, too, but Seth advised against making a score so close to the place they call home—his exact words were “Shouldn’t shit where we eat, Kate.”

Kate had made a face at Seth’s _colorful_ language, but she understood where he was coming from. They can’t have some eagle-eyed bartender reporting them to the hotel staff. It doesn’t matter if _this_ bartender remembers Kate’s face when she’s questioned by the police— _if_ she’s questioned by the police—because she’s never going to see her again.

Kate toys with the lime garnishing her glass, unsure if it’s just there for decoration or if she’s supposed to eat it—but then her hand stills when she feels eyes sweeping up the nape of her neck like the drag of teasing fingernails. Kate glances over her shoulder, pretending that she’s looking at the clock—and meets Seth’s eyes.

He’s sequestered in a corner booth, toying with the stem of a glass that almost certainly doesn’t contain a _virgin_ margarita. Or maybe it does. He probably wants to keep a clear head. Regardless, he isn’t drinking from it. He probably only ordered something so the staff wouldn’t kick him to the curb.

He doesn’t nod at Kate, but his lips curl infinitesimally. Kate realizes that she’s been looking at him for too long and faces front again; she doesn’t want to give the impression that she’s already found herself a _date_ for the night.

Kate smudges the condensation on her glass with the pads of her fingers and takes another tiny sip. She can’t drink too quickly, and she can’t drink too much—it would really, really suck if she was struck by the need to go to the bathroom in the middle of all this. If she actually _pees_ herself on her first job, Seth will _never_ let her live it down. _Ever_.

Kate wipes her damp palms dry on the rayon skirt of her pink sundress.

 _Gotta bait the hook_ , _sweetheart,_ Seth had told her, but the dress itself hadn’t been his idea. Kate had picked it out, thinking of men like Professor Tanner. Of men she wouldn’t feel guilty about robbing at gunpoint.

She went easy on the makeup, too, knowing that layering it too thickly would have her looking closer to twenty than seventeen. She’d topped it all off by tying her hair into pigtails, and Seth had almost choked on his tongue when he’d gotten a good look at _those_.

Kate picked out the dress, did her hair and her makeup, but it was Seth who picked out her pink satin purse and the Smith & Wesson J-Frame she’s carrying around in it.

“Now, you listen to me, kiddo. I’m gonna be on your tail the whole time, but if something goes wrong and I’m not there yet, I don’t care where you’re at or how many witnesses there are, you shoot the fucker, alright? Shoot him in the dick, pop him in the kneecaps, I don’t really give a shit. Do what you gotta do to keep him off of you.”

Kate’s neck prickles again, and she wonders if she’s somehow drawn Seth’s attention by thinking about him, like he can read the surface level of her thoughts. She cranes another look over her shoulder, but Seth’s not looking at her. He’s swirling his margarita around in its glass like brandy and playing with his phone.

Kate looks further to his left. Locks eyes with the man who’s staring at her rather blatantly.

He’s older than Kate but younger than Seth, and well dressed—a spoiled college boy, maybe, one whose wealthy parents pay for his expenses—and he looks small and skinny enough to not easily overpower Kate, but—but he’s sitting in a booth crowded with four other guys. If he followed Kate out of here, the others might notice and follow, too. They might stop her and Seth from robbing him.  

They might decide that they want a taste of the little lost girl, too.

Kate scowls at the guy, and he flinches, eyes dropping to his drink. She twists back around and looks the other way, towards the other end of the bar.

It’s dimly lit in here, and what lighting there is has a wavering blue tint to it, giving the impression that they’re all aboard some sunken ship. It’s hard to pick out individual faces from across the room, but something—the glint of a watch, maybe—catches Kate’s eye.

 _She’s_ caught the eye of a man sitting by himself in a booth. He’s older than the first guy. Stockier, too, which isn’t a point in Kate’s favor. But even Kate, with her thoroughly middle-class upbringing, can tell that the clothes he’s wearing are expensive; his shirt looks like silk, and there’s a white Stetson resting on his table. His complexion is ruddy—from alcohol or sunburn or hypertension—and he looks more than a little tipsy, edging towards totally drunk. Kate could probably outrun him if she had to, even in her high heels.

Kate smiles at him. It’s a shy but welcoming smile, the kind she might turn on a cute boy she knows from school. Flirtatious, but in an innocent sort of way.

Some men can’t be bothered with innocence. Others, though, like it a little _too_ much.

The man smiles back at her, showing off teeth that gleam like bone. Definitely wealthy, to be able afford to teeth that white. Kate imagines them turning sharp. Imagines them lengthening into fangs.

No. She can’t think that way. He’s just a man. A disgusting pervert, sure, but a _human_ pervert.

Kate sticks her hand in her purse, fingers bumping the cold barrel of her gun, and pulls out a thin stack of bills, leaving them on the bar to pay for her drink with enough change left over for a tip. She hops off the barstool and wobbles for a second, exaggerating her swaying a bit as though she’s drunk, as though she used a fake ID to buy a real margarita—then makes a show of getting her bearings and strides towards the exit. She doesn’t look at Seth, but she can feel his eyes tracking her.

Kate doesn’t have to work hard at exaggerating the unsteady quality of her stride—she’s not even really faking it. She’s not used to wearing heels. Jessica started wearing them as soon as her parents would let her, liked to talk about how they made her butt stick out and her legs look good, and that Kate should try them for herself.

Well, she’s trying them. So far, she’d give the experience a solid _F_.

Kate steps out of the stuffy bar into the fresh air, turning down the sidewalk and going the way Seth mapped out for her. It’s a nicer part of town—it would have to be, with a bar like that—but it’s still got its fair share of narrow alleys and dark corners, and its towards one of those dark corners Kate that heads.

The sidewalk’s empty but for Kate, and she doesn’t hear footsteps trailing in her wake. For a second, she’s afraid that she miscalculated. That she read that man wrong.

But then she hears a quiet cough.

Kate looks over her shoulder. The man with the ruddy face is walking maybe ten, fifteen feet back from her. He meets Kate’s eyes and smiles again, more openly hungry now that there’s no one around to call him out for eyeing an underage girl.

Kate swallows tightly. Smiles back before facing front again and increasing her pace just a little, one ankle wobbling like it might turn over.  

Please, please don’t let it turn over.

The man’s too far back, and the night’s too full of the hum of cars and electricity, for Kate to hear him breathing, but she imagines she can hear him panting, anyway. That she can hear the drip of his saliva as it trickles down his chin.

Saliva, or venom.

Maybe Kate will let Seth shoot him even if he _does_ cooperate. At the very least, she’d like to knee him in the groin.

It’s getting darker now—the streetlamps are fewer and further between—and the streets are getting narrower, creeks rather than rivers. As Kate draws closer to a dead end blocked off by the brick-and-mortar rear of a building, she slows to a stop.

She turns around. The man is still coming, and she doesn’t see Seth.

Dammit. _Dammit_. He said he’d be right behind them. Did something happen to him? Is he alright?

Kate squeezes her purse’s strap. Concentrates on the reassuring weight of the gun against her hip.

“Hello,” the man says, within earshot now. “You seem to be lost. Could I give you a ride home? Are you here on vacation with your family?”

He’s smiling with too many teeth, and Seth _still_ isn’t coming up behind him, but someone else is.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing with that little girl?”

_Crap._

The man flinches like he’s been electrocuted and stumbles around to face the newcomer, nearly tripping over his own feet. Kate’s a little disappointed when he doesn’t fall on his ass.

“Well?” The woman who spoke— _shouted_ —is closer now, close enough that Kate can make out the gleam of her long blond hair, parted down the middle like she just stepped out of a television show from the seventies. “You got a good reason for following her?”

Kate can’t see the man’s face, but she imagines that his ruddy complexion has gone white as soured milk. “I—”

“Yeah, that doesn’t sound like a good reason to me.” The woman raises her hand, and the man flinches—but not because she’s pointing a gun at him. She’s holding a cell phone.

“I’ve already dialed the emergency number,” the woman says. “You’re one click of a button away from getting your ass locked up in a cell for attempted assault.”

Oh, hell. Of all the times for someone to be a Good Samaritan—

“I wouldn’t—I never—”

The woman hovers her thumb over the keypad, and the man cuts off his excuses with a curse before booking it across the street, stumbling over his own feet and calling the woman—and possibly Kate—all sorts of awful names as he goes.  

“Christ, what a peach.” The woman glares after the guy for a couple of seconds before giving Kate a onceover. “Hey. You alright?”

Kate doesn’t say anything, and the woman ventures closer, hand hovering in midair like she wants to check Kate for any damage.

“Hey. That guy—he didn’t touch you, did he?”

 _He fucking touch you?_ “No, he. I’m fine. You got here before he could do anything.”

 _Got here before_ I _could do anything._

“Thank God,” the woman breathes, dropping her hand. Her other hand’s still gripping her cell phone; slung over her shoulder is a flowered purse like the kind Kate used to own. “Honey, where are your parents? You’re not here by yourself, are you?”

 _No,_ Kate thinks, eyes trailing over the woman’s shoulder and landing on the approaching shadow. _I’m not._

“Hey!”

The woman whips her head around, blond hair lashing out and smacking Kate in the face. Kate edges out from behind her and approaches Seth, who’s bearing down on them with a scowl.

“What the fuck is going on here?”

“ _Excuse_ me?” the woman snaps. “Who the _hell_ are you to talk to me like that?”

“I’ll ask the questions, lady, thanks.” Seth looks at Kate as though to say, _Well?_

“Uh.” Kate resists the urge to shuffle her feet, not wanting to look like a guilty child. It’s not like she’s _actually_ done anything wrong. “This woman, she chased off the guy who was following me.”

Seth’s lips part. “She _what_.”

“Yeah, she—”

Seth doesn’t let Kate finish. He yanks his gun out of his waistband, cocks the hammer, and points the muzzle at the woman’s chest.

The woman’s eyes bug out. “What the _fuck_?”

“Like I said: I’ll ask the questions.” Seth gestures to the woman’s purse with his gun. “How much you got in there? Got any valuables? That watch worth anything? What about those rings?”

The woman just gapes, probably frozen with fear or shock. Kate tugs carefully on Seth’s arm. “Seth, she was trying to help me.”

“And I appreciate the sentiment behind the gesture.” Seth smiles at the woman, and it reminds Kate of how he used to smile at _her_ , when he was holding her family hostage. When he had the upper hand and he knew it. “Good on you. You deserve a cookie. But, you see, the little lady and I were baiting a trap, and you walked right into it. Now, we put a lot of time and effort into said trap, and I’m not about to let it go to waste on account of your nosy ass. Drop your shit and go, or I drop you.”

The woman finally moves—just her eyes, just her eyes that seek out Kate’s, narrowed with betrayal. “I _helped_ you.”

Hot pressure builds up behind Kate’s eyeballs. She doesn’t say anything.

Slowly, the woman eases her purse’s strap down her arm, then slides her watch and rings off too. She goes to set them on the sidewalk, but Seth makes a _nah-ah_ noise, and she freezes, still hunched over.

“Put the jewelry in the purse and kick it over here. The phone, too. Easy, now. That’s a good girl.”  

Teeth sinking into her lower lip, the woman complies, and Seth says, “Kate.”

Creeping forward, Kate grabs the purse and hooks it over her own shoulder. Hand clamping around her upper arm, Seth starts to back them both up.

“Wait.”

“Jesus Christ,” says Seth. “Haven’t you had enough?”

“I dunno.” The woman steps closer, close enough for Kate to make out her face, and. _And_. “Have _you_?”

 _Teeth_ , Kate thinks stupidly. Long, curved teeth, dripping with ropes of saliva and venom, framed by a jaw that’s opened impossibly wide.

Seth swears and squeezes off a shot, hitting the woman in the chest. The force of the shot pushes her back, but she doesn’t turn to dust, and then she’s launching herself forward almost too fast for Kate’s eyes to follow.  

“You _fucker_.” The woman—the _culebra_ —wraps her hands around Seth’s neck and bears him down to the sidewalk, bouncing his head off the hard ground, and, oh, no. Please don’t let him get a concussion or worse, _please_. “You thought I wouldn’t find you after what you did to my daughter? You thought I wouldn’t, you son of a bitch?”

Ears still ringing from the sound of Seth’s gun going off far, far too close, Kate bunches the muscles in her legs, intending to fling herself onto the culebra’s back and wrap her arms around her neck in a chokehold, but then Seth corrects the angle of his gun and fires another shot. The culebra’s body shakes, but she doesn’t get off of him, doesn’t collapse like a column of salt, and, _shit_. Seth has _got_ to stop firing that thing before he draws attention that they don’t need.

What’s more, if he keeps firing it, Kate won’t be able to get too close unless _she_ wants to get shot. And _she_ can’t use _her_ gun if she doesn’t want to shoot _Seth_. She can’t trust that the bullet won’t go through the culebra’s body and into Seth’s. She _can’t_.

“Think I wouldn’t smell that little virgin of yours from miles away?” The culebra digs her too-long fingernails into Seth’s face, drawing thin rivers of blood. She sneers—or at least, Kate _thinks_ she sneers. It’s hard to tell with the fangs in the way. “Honestly, I’m just surprised that you haven’t _fucked_ her yet.”

Kate backs herself against a wall, breath sawing in her lungs, panic making her clumsy, stupid. God, please just give her _something_ —

The building that dead ends the street—there’s a dumpster by its back door, and next to that, overflowing bags of trash. Trash and other bits of loose refuse: sheets of glass, splintered planks, shredded paper—

 _Splintered planks_ , you _dumbass_.

Kate launches herself at the trash, ankles barking with pain, and seizes a plank sticking out from between two bags of garbage. She’s met with resistance—what is this, the Sword in the freaking Stone?—and panicked, frustrated tears spring into her eyes and half blind her as her sweaty fingers slip across the plank and nearly come loose. She grinds out a curse, digs in harder—splinters sink into her flesh—and when the plank finally drags free, she nearly goes sprawling.

She doesn’t. She wheels around and comes up behind Seth and the culebra at a sprint, heels clattering on the pavement, not even trying to be quiet about it. The culebra knocks Seth’s gun out of his hand, and it goes skittering across the ground—the culebra hisses, rearing like she’s gonna strike—

And Kate drives the splintered end of the plank through the culebra’s back and out through the other side. The culebra screeches, a long, drawn-out wail that only dies when _she_ does, when she finally crumbles to dust.

All over Seth’s nice suit.

“Holy _shit_ ,” Seth rasps.

Kate collapses onto her butt with a huff, clinging to the wooden plank like it’s a teddy bear. Coughing, Seth sits up, fingers circling his bruised throat.

“You gonna get that dry cleaned?” Kate asks him, nodding at his ruined suit and giggling when he looks at her like he thinks she’s lost her marbles. Her laughter’s flavored with hysteria and shaky with tears, but she can’t seem to stop.

She doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I Googled "most expensive wines" and the top prices had me GAGGING, folks. Seriously, eat the rich. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! We're creeping up on that E rating. Promise.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seth's moral compass is a roulette wheel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's just porn.

The comb that Kate’s been running through her damp hair hits a snag, teeth catching in a knot and pulling so hard at her scalp that her eyes water. She considers leaving it alone to be dealt with later, but then she pictures that tiny knot growing into a matted wad of hair at the base of her neck, something that will take drastic measures to get rid of—drastic as in _scissors_ —so she clenches her jaw, firms her grip, and _yanks_.

Her scalp screams, her eyes burn, and the knot breaks with an audible snap. Kate pulls the comb free and unwinds the thin skein of hair that’s snarled itself around three plastic teeth, then scoots off the bed and pads over to the wastebasket by the desk just as the muted thunder of the shower spray cuts off.

Kate shakes the loose strands of hair off her fingers and spends too many seconds watching them drift down into the wastebasket before returning to the bed. She sets the comb down on the nightstand, sits in the dead center of the mattress, and pretzels her legs.

Her scalp still hurts, but not as badly as her feet do. Those heels did a real number on her.

Seth comes out of the bathroom, hair dripping like he didn’t bother toweling it off, excess water plastering his gray t-shirt’s collar to his heavy clavicles. He keys the code into the electronic safe and pulls out a bottle of whiskey, then snags a tumbler off the top of the sleek black cabinet and pours himself two fingers of the stuff. He knocks it all back in one go, mouth twisting when it hits his tongue and pours down his throat. _The whiskey face_ , he’s called it. It reminds Kate of the faces _she_ used to make whenever she was coerced into taking grape-flavored medicine.

She really doesn’t get why anyone would actively _want_ to drink something that triggers an expression like that, but Seth probably isn’t in it for the flavor.

Maybe the taste is worth it in the end, if you drink enough of the stuff. Kate’s father certainly seemed to think so.

“What the fuck.” Seth pours himself another two fingers, but he doesn’t immediately take a drink, just swirls the whiskey around and around like he did his margarita. “Whoever heard of vampire nuclear families, Jesus.”

Technically, to make a nuclear family, Amy would have to have a sibling, and she only mentioned parents—but now’s not the time to be pedantic, so Kate refrains from correcting him. “I told you she said she was with her parents.”

“Yeah, you did. You want a fuckin’ medal or something?” Seth finally tosses back the whiskey, pulls another face, lets the emptied tumbler dangle loosely from his fingertips. His lips are wet, gleaming, but he doesn’t lick them dry. “Shit. Soon as I find the right guy, you and me are gonna buy ourselves some forged passports and get the _fuck_ out of Mexico.”

That sounds alright by Kate, so long as they don’t linger in Texas, either, because _Bethel’s_ in Texas, and it’s a big state, sure—bigger than it has any right to be, really—but _anywhere_ within the state lines is too close to the life she lost when her dad hustled her and Scott into that _goddamn_ RV.

When he as good as painted a target on her back.

 _No_. That isn’t fair. Her father had no way of knowing what was coming. None of them did, not even Seth. Not even Richie.

“Ants in your pants, Kate?”

 _Shit._ Was she fidgeting? She was definitely fidgeting. “I. I was just wondering.”

Seth poured himself two more fingers of whiskey as Kate spoke, but when she fumbles to a halt, he tips his glass and squints at her over the rim. Then he sets it down on top of the cabinet and comes over to Kate’s bed, sitting at the foot and twisting to face her.

And _then_ he snags her ankle and drags her down there with him, making her yelp like a dog. When her legs are dangling off the end of the bed, she turns and kicks him, but apart from swaying in place a little, he just looks way, _way_ too amused by her outburst.

Bastard.

“C’mon, Katie. What’s got your panties in a twist _this_ time?”

There’s so much wrong with that second sentence, but Seth’s not gonna let this go—Kate _knows_ that he won’t—and she’s just gotta _spit it out_ , like he said before. Get it over with fast, like yanking a comb through a knot, because not knowing is always, _always_ worse than knowing, no matter how terrible the knowledge may turn out to be.

“Are you gonna. I mean, these things—you heard what she said back there. Amy’s mom, I mean.” _Amy’s mom_ , even though they looked nothing alike, probably weren’t related by blood. Maybe _sire’s_ a better word for it. “She _tracked_ us here ’cause of—because of me. She followed _my_ scent. Not yours.”

Seth’s mouth twists like he downed a shot of whiskey, only this time, he’s making that face because of _her_. “Kate, if this is about that purity bullshit, I already _told_ you—”

But the words keep tumbling out, avalanching off her tongue. “Are you gonna leave me? Because I attract those things, are you going to—”

“You think I’m gonna _leave_ you?”

“Seems like I’m more trouble than I’m worth,” Kate mumbles, looking at the hangnail on her big toe instead of Seth’s face because she’s afraid of what she’d see _in_ his face.

It really would be in Seth’s best interest to ditch her. She meant it when she said that she’s more trouble than she’s worth, and Seth. Seth’s not a good person. His conscience, while not entirely nonexistent, is extremely stunted. No matter how attached she’s grown to him, Kate needs to remember that.

She needs to remember that Seth Gecko is a bad man.

But then Seth rocks in close, ducking his head and snagging Kate’s eyes like a magnet pulling slivers of iron. He tucks his fingers under her jaw and scoops up her chin, thumb sketching aimless circles on her skin the way it did that first night, when he held her until she fell into a fitful sleep.

“Kate, honey. I may be a bastard, but I’m not a _fuckin’_ bastard.”

Kate sucks the corner of her lower lip into her mouth and chews on it. “You’re not—you’re not gonna leave me?”

Seth shakes his head. Wordless, but straightforward. No room for misinterpretation.

Kate chews her lip harder, chews like she’s gnawing on a hunk of dry steak. “What, because you feel like you owe me something?”

Seth’s answering smile is wide enough to bring out his dimples. “Shit, Kate, the hell does it matter?”

Guess it _doesn’t_ matter, so long as the end result is the same. Kate shrugs out of Seth’s grip, and his fingers fall away unresisting, drop to wrap around his thigh.

Kate traces those fingers with her eyes, follows them up to the thick veins that run like tributaries across the back of his hand. Higher still, to the dark hair that dusts his tan forearm, to the swell of his tattooed bicep before it disappears into the tight sleeve of his t-shirt. And then there’re the droplets of water that haven’t entirely evaporated from his collarbones, his throat.

His throat. It’s ringed in bruises that are coming up purple, and Kate noticed them out in the street, but she didn’t really _notice_ them.

Kate doesn’t consciously move her hand, but it moves, and her fingertips graze an especially nasty bruise in the shape of a thumb, a purple so dark it’s nearly black, like a ripe plum— _Little Jack Horner sat in the corner, eating his Christmas pie_ —and Seth’s breath. _Hitches_.

From the pain. Must be. Obviously, her poking at it would sting, so she withdraws, fingers curling into her palm like a mollusk retreating into its shell.

“Sorry,” she says. And, “You’re hurt.” Well, duh, you idiot. He’d know that better than you, wouldn’t he?

Seth’s smile lingered through the lapse in conversation, even when Kate started prodding at his bruises, and now it takes on a sardonic twist. “What d’you think the whiskey was for?”

 _Seriously?_ “Because _ibuprofen_ isn’t a thing.”

Seth just keeps on smiling at her, and after a beat of hesitation, Kate runs her fingertips across his bruises again, carefully this time, and his throat twitches, but he doesn’t hiss, and his breathing remains steady.

“You gonna kiss my boo boos, Kate?” Seth asks, and Kate’s fingers fall away from his throat like it just turned to molten metal and _scalded_ her.

And, oh, God, she must still be rattled from earlier, but what she ends up saying is, “Do you _want_ me to?”

Seth angles his head. He doesn’t answer her, but he opens his mouth like he’s _thinking_ about answering her. Skims tongue and teeth across his lower lip, finally sucking up the shine of whiskey.

 _Whiskey_. “You’re drunk,” Kate accuses him, and Seth laughs under his breath. That must be why he wants to keep her around: for the entertainment value. Apparently, she’s hilarious without meaning to be.

“Nah. What, I look like some kinda lightweight to you? I’m hurt, Kate, really.”

Kate puts thoughts of Seth’s pickled liver aside and really _looks_ at him. He’s not drunk, and Kate’s _seen_ drunk, seen it on her father most recently. Seth’s eyes are clear. His words aren’t slurred. He’s got to have a buzz going on, at least, but.

But.

But it’s very likely that Kate’s getting a contact high from the alcohol on Seth’s breath, because she ducks her head and presses her lips to his purpled throat, right below his pulse point. Warm. He’s so warm that he leaves her lips feeling burnt, and they _still_ feel that way even after she severs the contact. Warm, and tingling like he shocked her, like he’s got live wires instead of veins threaded beneath the surface of his skin.

Wait. _What_.

Kate’s brain stutters like an internet browser with a bad connection. _What_ , she thinks again. _What the hell was that_. “I—”

Whiskey. A different kind of burn than the tequila Seth made her knock back at the Titty Twister, but a burn all the same. The taste of it slicks across her lower lip like the sweep of a searching tongue and pours down her throat like she drank it straight from the source. Kate’s toes curl. Her toes, her fingers, possibly even her _hair_.

 _Oh, God_ , Kate thinks. Just that. Like she’s praying.

She very well might be.

Seth’s lips trail away from hers, taking detours on the corner of her mouth and the bolt of her jaw before settling in the hollow below her ear and _sucking_ until her curled toes cramp impossibly tighter, until a pulse starts beating between her legs like the pulse beating in her throat, until she’s surely got a bruise swelling up to match his.

He’s biting her. Like a culebra would, but also not. Blunt human teeth, and no venom to speak of, but still.

 _Still_.

And then Seth pulls off Kate’s throat with a pop, knocks his forehead against hers and just breathes softly if unevenly against her face. The whiskey on his breath isn’t as strong as it was before because he shared it with _Kate_. He ran it down her throat, and now it’s burning like a coal in her stomach.

No. Not her stomach, or not _just_ her stomach. Lower.

“I thought.” Her voice rasps, more of that whiskey contact high. “I thought you didn’t want to.”

Seth’s laughter tickles the downy hair on Kate’s upper lip. “Sweetheart,” he says. _Croons_. “You’ve mistaken me for someone with a functioning moral compass.”

He _does_ have morals, though, is the thing. Skewed ones, maybe, but still. He doesn’t abandon young girls in Mexico. Doesn’t kill if he doesn’t have to. He punched out one man who sexually harassed her and pointed his gun at the other with the clear intent of using it.

He’s not a good man, no, but he certainly isn’t the worst.

Swallowing is more difficult than it has any right to be. “Thought you said you weren’t a fucking bastard.”

Seth presses his mouth to hers, fleetingly, and she feels the shape of his smile. “Still a bastard, though.”

Kate’s eyelids slide shut. And when Seth lips at her chin, they _squeeze_ shut. So does her throat, choking off the noise that wants to trickle out of her.  _Don’t moan. Don’t. Moan_.

“Honey, I didn’t turn you down ’cause I didn’t wanna fuck you. I turned you down ’cause _you_ didn’t wanna fuck _me_.”

 _Fuck you_. Kate’s heard it used as an insult, has _used_ it as an insult, but she’s never heard it in this context. Has never heard it spoken with _intent_.

 _Fuck you_ , and her throat isn’t what squeezes this time. Muscles between her legs constrict like a funnel clamping shut, like fruit being squeezed for juice, and just like a fruit pulped in a crushing fist, something trickles out of _her_ , thick and sticky and _wet_.

Wet. She’s getting wet.

 _Seth_ is _making_ her wet.

A shocked noise whistles through her clenched teeth, and Seth catches it against his mouth. She’s not shocked over her arousal—she’s been turned on before—but at the strength of it. At the _intensity_. He’s barely touched her and yet she feels like she’s been punched in the cunt.

 _Cunt_. That’s another dirty word that Seth would use, isn’t it, to go along with _tits_. A matching set.

She wants to hear Seth use it. Oh, God, she _wants_ to.

Seth’s tongue swipes across her lower lip, kicking her nerve endings into a tizzy, and Kate chases it, chases it until Seth gives it to her again, slicks it between her open lips and rolls it into her mouth— _did you get religion?_ —and Kate doesn’t remember fisting her hands in his t-shirt, but there they are, and here _she_ is.

Here she is.

“Sweetheart,” Seth says, crooning it like he had when he warned her that he doesn’t have a functioning moral compass. “Not wanting to die’s a shitty reason for losing your virginity.”

“I think it’s a good one, actually.” The best, even, aside from love. And whatever else this may be, it certainly isn’t _love_.

Thumbs framing her jaw, tilting back her head. Lips on her jugular, the edge of teeth too dull for a culebra’s but still oddly sharp, still enough to make Kate’s pulse spike with something not unlike fear. Instinctive, irrational, but again: _still_.

Slow, gentle bite. Suction that Kate can somehow feel directly on her clitoris. “I’m not gonna fuck you.”

“But—”

“But we can have sex. If you want.”

Kate blinks at the ceiling. White speckled paint, spinning fan. Her brain spins like the blades of that fan, twirls in giddy circles. “Isn’t that the same thing?”

Soft lips close around sharp teeth and tug into another smile. It’s great that she can amuse him like this. Really goddamn great. “You really haven’t been around much, have you?”

Kate scowls and pulls away, but Seth snatches the frown right off her mouth, softens it into an open wet hollow. “You gotta tell me, Kate. Yes or no. You want me to get you religion or not?”

And there it is. Kate’s heart feels like it’s gonna hammer right out of her body by way of her cunt, but she says, “Can we. Can we turn off the lights?”

Seth’s face softens. He strokes his fingers through Kate’s drying hair, runs his nails across her scalp until it tingles. “Sure, honey. If that’s what you want.”

Kate drops her eyes to her lap. Nods.

Seth cups Kate’s hip and squeezes, and he’s not touching her in any particularly intimate way, but the pressure of his fingers still sends a throb right to the core of her, coaxing out more liquid heat that covers the crotch of her underwear in a tacky film. “But if you’re afraid of _disappointing_ me or some crazy shit like that, then, sweetheart, I’m gonna tell you right now that you got nothing to worry about.”

Kate almost snorts. Right. Sure. Who even knows how many beautiful _adult_ women he’s been with, and then there’s Kate, still caught in adolescence’s awkward grip, with her pasty skin and her small breasts. Her body won’t _disappoint_ him? Like hell it won’t.

Seth drops a kiss onto her cheek before climbing off the foot of the bed, and Kate follows him with her eyes, notes the swelling at the crotch of his sweatpants, the outline of his—of his _dick_ that’s clear in a way it never is when he’s wearing jeans or slacks. Notes it and clamps her thighs together and tries not to visibly squirm.

The light clicks off, and Kate blinks rapidly, trying to get her eyes to adjust. The bed dips, and Seth pats the mattress.

“Kate Fuller, come on down.”

Kate snorts, amused by his antics despite herself, and that was probably his intent. He probably wanted to divert her attention away from her nerves, only now that she’s thinking about it, she’s getting nervous all over again. Oh, God, she can’t do this.

But she _wants_ to. Or at least, she wants to do _some_ of it.

And she trusts Seth to stop if she tells him to. She does.

So she crawls up the bed, and she can’t see his face—her eyes haven’t adjusted well enough for that, can’t do much with the thin bar of light that cuts through the crack in the curtains—but she can make out the shape of him, of the arms that open for her as she eases herself against his solid chest.

“C’mere, honey,” he murmurs, and takes her mouth again. No. He doesn’t _take_ it. She _gives_ it to him. Offers herself up, a willing virgin sacrifice.

They just kiss for a while, deep and slow like he’s easing her into it, and Kate doesn’t even jump when Seth takes two handfuls of her ass and _squeezes_ with an appreciative groan. They kiss until Kate’s lips grow sore and slick, until she has to keep breaking away from him to take in gulps of air, and then he’s turning her around so her back is to his chest and her butt’s resting against his crotch, and, that. That is definitely an erection.

Well, okay. She’s felt erections before, a couple times, when Kyle pressed close only to flinch away and apologize before putting a respectable amount of distance between their lower halves. Only, not to be unfair to Kyle—not that she gives a damn about _fair_ , come to that, with the way he spoke to her family—but there was never _this much_ of him to feel.

 _Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, you are in_ way _over your head._

Seth cups her belly, rubs her through her t-shirt. “Can I take this off, honey?”

Oh. Okay. Kate nods, the back of her head bumping Seth’s chin, and curls her fingers in the hem of her shirt, fumbling—but then Seth’s fingers are there, too, hooking, tugging, and cotton hugs Kate’s face and blocks off her nostrils for a second before coming loose. Seth tosses the shirt to one side, and Kate doesn’t even try to track where it went, just hears the thwap of fabric hitting a flat surface somewhere to her right.

And Seth doesn’t wait. Doesn’t ask permission because he _already_ asked permission when he asked to take off her shirt. Kate knew what he meant by that. She knew, but she still twitches when his hands cup her breasts, palms flush with her hard nipples, long fingers stretching towards her collarbones.

Kate opens her mouth—to apologize for her inadequacy, maybe?—but then Seth slurps his tongue up her neck and kneads her breasts and mumbles, “Fuckin’ _perfect_ ,” and.

And he’s probably just saying that to make her feel better, but still. But still, it sends a flush of pleasure through her, the praise. Like she did something good just by existing, just by being shaped the way she is.

And, anyway, he’s still hard and throbbing against her backside—growing harder, even—so he clearly doesn’t think that touching her is _that_ great of a chore.

And then he—he  _pinches_ her nipples, and Kate’s body must confuse the shock of pain for pleasure, because her hips arch, bringing the crack of her ass flush with Seth’s erection, and he grunts, low and guttural, and the not-pain funnels from Kate’s breasts to her cunt.

 _Oh, God,_ she thinks, and when Seth’s laugh buffets her ear, she realizes that she didn’t just think it. She said it out loud, too.

That would be embarrassing, if she had any room left in her body for anything but what he’s doing to her. What he’s making her _feel_.

He rolls her nipples between his fingers— _twisting_ them, she thinks, mind flashing back to the Titty Twister. But she doesn’t want to think about that awful place, and she’s so busy _not_ thinking about it that she doesn’t notice the descent of Seth’s left hand—left, because he’s lefthanded—until it’s cupping her crotch through her shorts and _kneading_.

A noise punches out of Kate. Not a moan—just this breathless little _ah_ , and she grabs Seth’s wrist, hugs it so tight she can feel his bones grinding together in her grip.

Seth’s hand stills. Stills, but doesn’t retreat. “You doing alright?”

Kate wants to say yes, but she can’t force the word past the lump in her throat, so she nods, nods and lets her head drop back against Seth’s shoulder. She loosens her hold on Seth’s wrist but doesn’t let him go, and her legs fall open. Her legs fall open, and Seth’s hand flexes, stove-top hot through her shorts and panties, and he runs his middle finger along the outline of her slit. Down, and back up, fingernail clipping her clitoris, and Kate _squirms_. Writhes.

At some point, her hand fell away from his wrist, just went limp against her own thigh, so there’s nothing to obstruct him when he pushes past her shorts and underwear and tangles his fingers in her bush of pubic hair.  

Everything in Kate locks up tight, but not in a good way, not that constriction of pleasure like a squeezed fruit. Crap, she forgot. Guys don’t like pubic hair, do they? At the very least, they want it trimmed, and Kate’s pubic hair is by no means out of control, but neither is it especially neat, so—

Seth lips at Kate’s ear. Pulls the lobe between his teeth so her toes curl. “Breathe, Katie.”

She does. She breathes out, slow, and Seth breathes with her, chest swelling and falling beneath her back. They breathe until Kate’s retreated from the ledge of panic.

“Good girl,” Seth murmurs, and Kate has to bite her tongue to stop herself from making an extremely embarrassing noise. She liked that too much. She liked it way, way too much.

Seth pulls his hand out of Kate’s underwear, and for a second, her breathing goes uneven again, worried that he didn’t like the feel of her, after all—but then the side of his hand’s grazing her cheek, and she hears wet suction close to her ear.

 _He’s getting them wet,_ Kate realizes. _He’s getting them wet so he can—_

Fingers on the soft rise of her belly, tracking spit, pausing just below her waistband. “This okay?”

Okay. Is it _okay_? It’s a lot of things, but _okay_ doesn’t really do any of them justice.

But Kate nods. She nods, and Seth nods against the side of her head, stubble burning her cheek like a blush, and then. And then he’s combing through her pubic hair, careful not to pull at her, and his two longest fingers. Touch her. Right there.

“ _Shit_ ,” Seth says, but not in a bad way. He breathes it. Sighs it, and Kate sighs right along with him. Because he’s got his wet fingers right where she’s coming up hard, hard in the same way that _he’s_ hard, and his calluses _scrape_ over the thousands of nerve endings that are all bundled up into one tiny protrusion, and more moisture slips out of Kate, trickles into the creases of her thighs and down the crack of her ass.

Seth digs in with his index finger, making Kate grunt, and peels something back. Her clitoral hood, Kate realizes. Her school’s sex ed program was abstinence only and seemed especially leery of the female reproductive system beyond its role in making and bearing children, but Kate bought some books on her own time, on the sly. She studied the penciled diagrams in those books and held a compact mirror up between her legs to compare. Looked at the dark pink folds of her labia and at what lay at the crux of them, tucked under a hood, only protruding when she put pressure on it.

Or when she started to get turned on.

And it’s like Seth’s the mind reader instead of his brother, because he says, “You ever touch yourself like this?” _Like this_ , and he illustrates _like this_ by pressing his index finger down hard and circling it, making Kate’s hips circle right along with it.

“Um.” Lord Jesus, Kate, the man’s got his hand between your legs, and you’re embarrassed to share your masturbatory habits with him?

“Or did the good God-fearing folks at your church tell you you’d go blind if you tried?”

Kate wants to scowl. _Would_ scowl, if she could get her face to relax out of its grimace. “I—they told me it was wrong. But I. I did it anyway.”

“Yeah. Just like slipping some Jesus freak the tongue in the back of the church, huh?” _Tongue_ , tongue running up her throat, lapping up her sweat. “You ever get yourself there?”

“Um.” Circling fingers; barbed wire spikes of pleasure; spasming _feet_ , of all things. “I. I’m not sure?” Sometimes she’d manage to wring out sullen little pulses, like the aftershocks of an earthquake, but they’d always been very…well, anticlimactic. Rarely worth the effort it took to trigger them, and usually she just gave up if she couldn’t get herself off within twenty or thirty minutes, hand growing cramped and tired.

Seth’s fingers dip down further, and Kate tenses, wondering if he’ll push them both into her all at once—she’s tried, could barely fit her own fingers inside her body, and her fingers are so much _smaller_ than his—but all he does is gather up more wet and use it to slick up her clitoris—her _clit_ —get it all slippery, and it swells up even fatter, even harder.

“You’ll be damn sure once I’m through with you, sweetheart,” he swears, mouth open and wet at her ear, open and wet like _she_ is, and his right hand squeezes her breast before crawling up her sternum to wrap gently around her throat— _to pin her by the throat_ —and the fingers between her legs circuit, and Kate squirms and _strains_ and hooks her legs over Seth’s, spreading herself wider until her hamstrings _burn_ , and hot tension spools low in her abdomen and ratchets up to a fucking _boil_ , and she—

She _comes_ with a shocked little cry, eyes and mouth caught wide, clit throbbing like a bruise—no, not just her clit, her—her _cunt_ is clenching over and over, fucking _spasming_ , pounding like her heart does after a sprint, and a flush of hormones is pinwheeling through her nervous system, so good, sweeter than any adrenaline rush.

And Seth, Seth talking her through it, rubbing her pulsing clit until she cries out and tries to squirm away because it’s just _too much_. “That’s it, come on, that’s it, baby girl, come all over my _fuckin’_ hand, c’mon, I know you got another one in you, sweetheart, come _on_ —” And he shifts his hand, grinds down with the heel of his palm, and just as Kate was coming down from her first orgasm, a second one kicks her in the back of the head—no, _grabs her by the throat_ —and it’s too much, _too fucking much_ —

Kate collapses, boneless but twitching, feet still convulsing like she’s been electrocuted.

Jesus. _Jesus_ , no wonder people do this.

Seth’s planting sloppy kisses all over her neck, grinding his dick against her ass, the shape of him so goddamn close through his thin sweatpants and her thinner shorts. “You did so good, sweetheart. So goddamn good.”

But she didn’t even _do_ anything, and she’s gearing up to _tell_ him so, but he shifts. Lays her out on the mattress and climbs out of bed, and did she do something wrong? She must have.

But then the mattress rolls, Seth’s silhouette looming over Kate, clearer than it was before because her eyes have adjusted. Which means that _his_ eyes have adjusted.

Kate crosses her arms over her breasts, but Seth says, “Nah-ah,” and sets something down on the bedside table with a clink.

“Never said I was finished with you, sweetheart,” he says, shackling her wrists and pinning them to the mattress. He straddles her hips, the pressure of his thighs against hers at once sweet and stifling.

 _Seth would make sure that she didn’t_ want _to get away_ , and the gentle little aftershocks that were pulsing deep in her cunt spike, make her grunt.

Seth kisses her cheek, her mouth, more affectionate than wanting. “Just hold still, alright? Can you do that for me?”

Well, she can barely move under her own power, so, sure. “But don’t you want me to—” _Reciprocate? Get you off?_

His thumbs sweep up her wrists, ride her pulse points, then sweep back down again. Up, down. “What I _want_ is for you to lie back and enjoy yourself. Okay?”

Kate nods. Yeah. Okay.

“Good girl,” Seth whispers, and he must catch her reaction this time, because his teeth gleam at her in the dark.

Goddammit.

Seth releases Kate’s wrists and reaches over her head. And then he’s back, and something cold and wet is splashing across her breasts, pulling her softening nipples back into hard, bumpy points. Kate squeaks, and Seth shushes her.

Dips his head and wraps his lips around her nipple and _slurps._

The sweet, pungent smell of alcohol burns in Kate’s nostrils. _Whiskey_ , Kate realizes. _That’s the whiskey_. He’s _licking it off of her_.

And Kate’s hands, heretofore kept mostly to herself, take on a life of their own and fist in Seth’s hair, holding him to her. They dig in close to his scalp, and she wishes, suddenly, that his hair was just a little bit longer, just long enough for her to wrap her fingers up in it and _pull_.

And she _does_ pull, as much as she can, when Seth runs his tongue from her right breast to her left, licking up more whiskey only to pour more of it onto her—and not just her breasts, but her abdomen. Her navel. He crawls down her body, lapping whiskey off her skin and leaving a sticky residue behind, sticky like the wreck of her panties.

Her panties. Seth hooks his fingers in those and in her shorts, tugs them down, and Kate’s too blissed-out to be embarrassed. Or she _was_ , until Seth palms her right knee and pulls it away from the left, until he leans back on his heels and _looks_ at her.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he sighs. “You’re a mess.”

Kate squirms and curls a hand over her vulva, but Seth says, “God, baby, don’t do that. Let me see your pretty pussy,” and Kate.

She’d say that she _moans_ , but that word doesn’t do the sound she makes justice.

“That’s it,” Seth coaxes, brushing her hand aside. He picks up the bottle of whiskey—when did he put it down?—and unscrews the cap, pouring the last of it onto her—

Kate comes off the bed, crying out at the shock of stinging cold, and Seth tosses the drained bottle to one side, tosses it like trash and pushes Kate’s legs up and back, crouches between her thighs and dips his head and _licks the whiskey right off her cunt_.

How can he? How can he want to do something like this? The things he’s doing to her—

He slurps up the last dregs of the whiskey, tongues her open, and Kate’s toes clench at the shock of his finger sliding into her, so hard and thick, but she’s so wet and _loose_ that there’s no sting, none at all, and she grinds down on that finger, grinds herself against his _face_ , against the stubble that scrapes her pussy lips raw, and then he closes his mouth over her clit and sucks a third orgasm right out of her.

Kate pants, disbelieving, fingers gone limp against the curve of Seth’s skull. She never thought—she never even _imagined_ —

No. She _has_ imagined. She just didn’t believe that it would _actually_ be this good.

Seth pulls off her cunt with an obscene slurp that she’ll hear in her dreams for the rest of her life. He rolls her onto her side, and she goes, unresisting. Tucks himself against her back, pushes his sweatpants down his hips, and when his naked, pulsing dick bumps her ass cheek and smears wet trails across her skin, Kate fucking _shudders_.

He tucks his hand between her thighs and lifts her left leg, slots his dick against her pussy lips, and Kate seizes up, panic rattling through the aftershocks of her orgasm. “Seth—I can’t—”

“Shh, baby, shh. Told you I wasn’t gonna fuck you.” Fingers combing through her hair, soft lips on the edge of her jaw. He _fucks_ his hips forward, but he doesn’t fuck _her_. Fucks her thighs and not her pussy. “You gonna let me come? You gonna let me come on you? Huh, sweetheart?”

Kate reaches around and grabs Seth’s flexing bicep. She nods, and Seth’s exhale is one of abject relief.

“Good girl,” he says, slurred but not from the whiskey, slurred because he gritted the syllables out through his _teeth_ , and he works himself into a rhythm that drags his dick back and forth along her cunt, that has her sticky lips _clinging_ to him, the obscene squelching of it all ringing in her ears. Fast, hot drag of skin; fingers pulping her breast; hair scratching her thighs. And Kate’s _certain_ that she literally can’t come anymore, but when the wet head of Seth’s dick clips her clit, something sparks between her legs like she very well might.

She doesn’t. But when _Seth_ comes. When he seizes up behind her and slams her back against his chest and spurts out ropes of tacky wet heat that pool between her thighs and run in rivulets across her skin, it doesn’t feel wrong.

She’s supposed to be _impure_ now, but she doesn’t feel _ruined_. She doesn’t feel _dirty_.

She doesn’t feel dirty at all.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Culebra family values.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do my best to personally thank everyone who comments, but I wanted to take a second to give a mass thank-you to those of you who've left kudos. You've all made me so happy just by being here. So, really: thank you ❤️

Warm, solid presence at her back. Heavy arm draped around her waist, pinning her to the mattress. Seth, Kate realizes as she blinks herself into full consciousness. Holding her like he had that first night after the Titty Twister.

The arm around her waist constricts, gently, then shifts. A wide, callused hand closes around her breast, thumb teasing her soft nipple into a hard point.

 _Oh_ , Kate thinks.

Not like that first night at all, actually. Not in any way that counts.

Seth yawns and stretches, unrepentantly lazy as any cat, sweatpants and t-shirt dragging against Kate’s bare skin. Something pokes Kate in the backside, and it definitely isn’t Seth’s kneecap.

“Morning,” Seth mumbles, squeezing Kate’s breast affectionately. He kisses the nape of her neck, wet and a little sloppy with lingering grogginess, and Kate just about melts into the mattress, she’s so relieved.

At least he isn’t pretending that it didn’t happen. Facing the morning after head-on is bound to be a master class in _awkward_ , but Seth pretending that nothing happened between them and going back to how things were before, that. That was the worst-case scenario.

“Mornin’,” says Kate, and the fingers on her breast dig in like a cat flexing its claws—guess she’s sticking with that metaphor—palm circling her nipple the way it circled her clit, and, again, Kate thinks, _Oh_.

Because. Because now that Kate’s thinking about her clit, she’s _thinking_ about her clit. She’s not turned on yet, exactly, but she’s still puffy and a little sore from last night’s three—holy shit, _three_ —orgasms. And as Seth’s hand drifts from her breast to her abdomen, the thoroughly used muscles between her legs give an interested twinge.

 _You’ve gotta be kidding me_ , Kate thinks, and a trickle of moisture squeezes out of her cunt as though to say, _Nope. Dead serious, sister_.

Seth nuzzles her shoulder, stubble scraping her skin raw— _scraping her pussy lips raw_ —and cups her mound, longest finger trailing towards her slit.

And then that finger curls, hooking itself in the seam of her sex and parting her lips with an audible squelch.

_Jesus Christ Almighty._

A thick, heavy noise squeezes out of Kate’s throat, not quite a grunt, and Seth hums back at her. Questioning, and more than a little pleased. Like he knows _exactly_ what he’s doing to her—and he’d know that for certain, wouldn’t he, with the proof dripping all over his hand—and is feeling terribly smug about it.

And as infuriating as that is, Kate doesn’t want to get out of bed. She really, really does _not_. And she probably wouldn’t, if the pressure building between her legs was just arousal.

“Seth,” Kate whispers, squirming, and Seth’s finger hooks deeper into her cunt, sinking in to the second knuckle. “Seth, I’ve gotta go to the bathroom.”

Seth’s hand stills, but he doesn’t let go of her immediately, and Kate’s about to tell him to hurry it up already when he finally pulls his finger out of her, her body clinging to him like it wants to pull him back in. His arm unravels from around her waist, and he scoots back, but not very far. Still far enough for Kate to maneuver herself out of bed unencumbered, though.

“Thanks,” she mumbles, not looking at him as she sits up. She blinks in the gray light filtering in through the crack in the curtains—early morning or just a cloudy day; she won’t know for sure until she looks at a clock—blankets pooled around her waist, a draft licking across her breasts and teasing goosebumps to the surface of her skin.

A draft.

Kate was already aware that she’s still naked, that she must not have gotten dressed last night after she and Seth…finished. But Kate’s skin is tingling, and not from the goosebumps, and when she tilts her head and looks at Seth, she finds that he’s looking right back at her.

At her _breasts_ , actually.

Kate _yanks_ the blankets up to her collarbones and does a frantic sweep around the room, only relaxing a little when she spots her shorts and underwear crumpled in a heap at the foot of the bed. And maybe she’s being ridiculous, considering what she and Seth did last night, but she asked him to turn the lights off for a _reason_ , and, okay, so she swanned around in her underwear that first night, but that was _before_.

Before he stuck his head between her legs and licked _whiskey_ off her cunt, Jesus.

Firming her grip on the blankets, Kate leans forward to grab her clothes, only to flush at the muffled groan that drifts into her ears. Right. With the way she’s bent at the waist, Seth’s probably getting a good eyeful of her ass.

Kate snatches up her shorts and underwear and wrestles them onto her legs beneath the covers, grimacing when her ruined panties stick and cling to her crotch. With one arm held across her breasts, Kate climbs out of bed to search for her erstwhile shirt, and once she finds it, she hurries to dig out a change of clothes and her bag of toiletries.

As she gets her things together, she glances at the digital clock. Nine in the morning. Not too late, but later than Kate used to get up before her life went down the toilet.

Seth must have really tired her out.

Speaking of Seth—on her way to the bathroom, Kate glances back at him, which turns out to be a mistake. Because he’s just _lying_ there with one arm pillowing his head and the fingers of his other hand tucked between his lips.

The fingers that were touching _her_ , Kate realizes, flushing hot and cold all at once. The fingers that probably smell and _taste_ like her.

Jesus. Just. _Jesus_.

“I’m taking a shower,” Kate announces, somewhat stupidly, seeing that the bag of toiletries she’s holding kind of gives her intentions away.

Seth drags his fingers out of his mouth with a pop and crooks a teasing grin her way. Teasing and almost mean, like when he told her to confess.

“Want some company?” he asks her, and the fine hairs on the nape of her neck stand straight up.

But, no. Not in those harsh fluorescent lights, she doesn’t, and she’s not about to take a shower in the dark with Seth and risk breaking one or both of their necks.

“No, thank you,” Kate says primly, and Seth’s soft laughter follows her to the bathroom, only cutting off when she clips the door shut.

Bastard.

Kate snaps the bathroom lights on and dumps her stuff on the counter. She catches her reflection in her periphery as she undresses, looks away, and then does a double take.

Her eyes aren’t quite as hollow as before, at least. But the rest of her—

God, _the rest of her_.

Her hair’s in snarls like it was in the aftermath of the Titty Twister, but for _wildly_ different reasons. It’s been hours since Seth kissed her on the mouth, but her lips are still bruised. And her body—

They ring her neck, fat and purple, dripping towards her breasts like jewels on a necklace. They frame her nipples, ride her hips, trail down her thighs.

Hickeys. Gigantic goddamn  _hickeys_.

Not just hickeys. Kate doesn’t know how she didn’t notice this until now, but her inner thighs are covered in a tacky white film that pulls her skin taut. She scrapes a fingernail through some of it, and it flakes off in little chips like paint.

Semen. Seth came on her thighs, and now she can _smell_ it, thick and musky. Can smell herself too, along with the sweet lingering stink of whiskey.

Kate shudders and braces her hands on the countertop, not at all confident in her ability to stay standing under her own power. God, the things he did to her. The things she _wanted him_ to do to her. And now. Now she looks _debauched_. She’s never heard anyone use that word outside of cheesy romance novels, but it’s accurate. God, is it accurate.

Kate’s cross dangles from her throat, glinting in the fluorescents like a pointed reminder of how she _shouldn’t’ve_ enjoyed the things that happened between her and Seth last night. But she did. God, she did.

A sound catches in her throat. Not a moan at the sense memory of Seth’s thick dick dragging across her pussy lips. No. A hysterical _giggle_.

God. _God_. If her congregation could see her now, they’d all have a mass _stroke_.

Kate shakes herself. Turns around, wincing when the dried come on her thighs cracks with the movement—God, that’s _disgusting_ —and snaps the shower on before squatting on the toilet to pee. Maybe it’s silly of her, but she’s not at the point where she’s comfortable with Seth hearing her go to the bathroom.

Kate does her business, flushes, and waits for the shower spray to warm to a comfortable temperature before stepping into the tub and yanking the curtain shut. Grabbing the white bar of hotel soap, she sets to obliterating every last trace of bodily fluids with prejudice.

Even once she’s all cleaned up, though, Kate lingers in the shower until the spray starts to cool, knowing that she’s wasting water and feeling pretty bad about it but unable to convince her body to move. She thinks of Seth standing in this shower last night, of how the water must have trickled down his flat stomach and dripped off his dick like precome, and shudders so hard she feels it in her _teeth_.

She didn’t even get a proper look at him. He didn’t even take off his shirt, only shoved his pants down far enough to fuck her thighs, and that was from behind.

Maybe she’s a hypocrite, wanting to see all of him when she wouldn’t let him look at _her_ in proper lighting, but the point stands. She really, _really_ wants to see Seth Gecko naked. Wants to see, and touch.

Idly, without any real intent, Kate fingers at her lips, her clit. She didn’t get to see him, no, but she certainly _felt_ him. Felt his finger slide inside of her, so goddamn thick but nowhere _near_ as thick as his dick had felt. Even if he shoved three or _four_ fingers inside of her, it probably wouldn’t compare.

Kate’s fingers work faster.

How would it feel? How would Seth’s dick feel if she let him fuck her cunt?

Kate wants to find out.

Her orgasm surprises her, cresting like a wave and gushing with the shower spray down her thighs. She’s got her free arm braced on the tiled wall, but she still wobbles on her feet. She’s never come that fast just from touching herself. Never. It probably helped that she was still turned on from _Seth_ touching her, but still.

Kate pulls her fingers away from her gently pulsing clit. Tucks them into her mouth and licks them clean, heartbeat gradually slowing.

He’s done something to her, has Seth Gecko. He’s turned her into this hungry, wanting _thing_ , and she’s not even angry at him about it.

Kate waits for her breath to even out before snapping off the water and stepping out of the tub on jelly legs. Stacked neatly on the toilet tank is a pile of those white towels that are ubiquitous to hotels everywhere, and Kate snags one and pats herself dry before getting dressed. She hears the rumble of voices out in the room, and her ears prick, the skin on the nape of her neck pulling tight. Those don’t sound like tinny TV voices. They sound like real people.

Did Seth order room service?

It says a lot about the person the Titty Twister turned her into that Kate’s first instinct is to search the bathroom for a viable weapon. Unless she intends to concuss whoever it is with a bar of soap or smother them with a towel, she’s shit out of luck, and her gun’s in her bag on the dining table.

 _You’re being ridiculous,_ she tells herself. _It’s like you thought earlier. It’s just room service._

Repeating this thought like a mantra, Kate gathers up her things and eases the bathroom door open, stepping down the short hallway into the main room.

And freezes like a cornered rabbit.

It’s not room service. Well, the woman’s wearing a housekeeping uniform, but the man she’s with has a gun pointed at Seth’s head. There’s a silencer screwed onto the muzzle.

Kate’s body jerks forward, but the woman—young, dark haired, pretty in any other context—holds up her hand. She doesn’t touch Kate, doesn’t say anything, but her dark eyes narrow with a clear warning.

_You make a move, and your friend’s brains get splattered on the walls._

Kate doesn’t make a move.

“Glad you could join us, sweetheart,” the man says without looking away from Seth. Seth, whose eyes are all for Kate, whose fingers are clenched in the snarled bedsheets like it’s taking everything he’s got not to go to her right now. “Why don’t you take a seat right next to your man over here? C’mon, now.”

Kate’s fingers twitch, but her feet stick to the carpet like they’ve been glued in place. The cool air of the hotel room has gone arctic, making Kate’s toes cramp in her socks.

The woman—more of a girl, really, not much older than Kate by the looks of her—finally speaks. “You heard him. Go.”

Kate goes, feeling the gun that’s pointed at Seth like it’s pressed to her own skull. She sits next to Seth on the bed they woke up in together, and Seth grabs her thigh, his hard bicep cutting into her breasts. She holds onto his arm with both hands.

The man smiles warmly at them, and it even seems to reach his eyes. As with the young woman, Kate would probably think him good looking in literally any other context, but he’s got a gun on Seth, so she doesn’t.

Kate’s Smith & Wesson is tucked into his waistband.

Kate wonders if Seth’s conscious of the irony: that _he’s_ the one who’s perched on the edge of a bed in a hotel room while a frightening stranger threatens him with a gun and _smiles_ because he knows he’s got all the power. Knowing Seth, he probably is.

“Now,” the man croons, “was that so hard?”

Seth squeezes Kate’s thigh, and Kate narrows her eyes at the stranger. She’s not stupid enough to mouth off at this guy, but there’s not much she can do to wrangle her expression. She never was much of an actress.

“Ah, forgive me, queridos.” The man touches his right hand to his sternum, the other still wrapped around his gun. He’s lefthanded, like Seth. “I haven’t introduced myself, have I? I’m Ernesto, and that—” He jerks his head at the girl, still lurking in the background in her housekeeping uniform. “—is my daughter, Julieta. Well. _One_ of my daughters.”

The smile on Ernesto’s face hardens like concrete, and Kate knows. Really, she knew the second she stepped out of the bathroom.

So. Looks like Seth was right about them being a nuclear family, after all.

“You see,” Ernesto goes on, stooping to put his face on Seth and Kate’s level, “my other daughter is dead. You killed her, didn’t you, puto? Her, and my wife.”

“Sure did,” Seth drawls. “Killed the bitches dead. What about it?”

The hard smile on Ernesto’s face warps into a look of naked, seething _hatred_ , and Kate wants to hiss. What, is Seth trying to piss him off _more_? And claiming both kills—is that his way of _protecting_ Kate?

Probably it is, because he’s been protective of her from the start. Kate was always appreciative, in a conflicted sort of way, because she wouldn’t have _needed_ protecting if not for _him_.

She’s not feeling very appreciative right now. Right now, she just wants him to shut the hell up before Ernesto decides to rip his throat out.

But then Ernesto’s smile returns, and he straightens up and goes back to looming in a falsely congenial sort of way.

“This pretty little thing right here.” Ernesto nods at Kate, and Seth shifts so his shoulder overlaps hers, shielding her with his body. “Would it hurt you very badly to see her killed? I think it would.” Ernesto’s nostrils flare. “Oh, I _really_ think that it would.”

Seth _snarls_ low in his throat, body jerking like he wants to spring, and Kate tightens her hold on his arm even as Ernesto tuts and repositions his gun so it’s pointing at Kate’s head instead of Seth’s.

Seth goes still. Still as death, even. Kate’s right next to him, their bodies pressed flush, and she can barely feel him breathe.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Ernesto drawls. “No, I really would not.”

And Kate’s expecting Seth to say or do _literally anything_ but what comes out of his mouth next.

“Hey.” Ernesto’s eyes narrow like he wants to slap Seth for daring to speak out of turn, but he doesn’t. Not just now. “Do we get any last requests? That’s what I wanna know.”

Ernesto smiles again, shifting back to the man who has all the power and _knows_ it. So much like Seth. So much like Seth, yet so much worse.

“That depends. What’s the request, puto?”

Seth tilts his head, cheek grazing Kate’s, and Kate’s eyes wander towards the head of the bed. Seth usually sleeps with his gun under his pillow. Is it still there, or did Ernesto and Julieta find it and confiscate it too, tuck it away where Kate can’t see? Would she even be able to grab it in time?

Probably not. But she just might try.

She just might.

“It’s not so much a request,” says Seth, “as a question.”

Ernesto gestures magnanimously. “Go on.”

“What’s a big snake like you doing with a little pistola like that?” Seth nods at the gun in Ernesto’s hand, which, even without the silencer attached, is in no way _little_. “Didn’t think you guys had much use for firearms. Whatcha need ’em for when you got chompers like those?” And Seth clicks his teeth together to illustrate, snapping them right next to Kate’s ear.

Ernesto arches one brow, amused. “You _want_ me to rip your throat out? It’s a slower death than a gunshot wound, I’ll tell you that much.”

“Depends on the gunshot wound,” says Seth, and Kate cannot _believe_ he’s arguing the point. “I’ve seen men bleed out for a good forty minutes and not have the sense to just fucking die.”

What is he doing? _What is he doing_? Is he hoping to goad Ernesto into putting down the gun and coming at him armed with nothing but teeth and claws? Does Seth think he stands a better chance against him that way?

No way will Ernesto fall for it, though. No. Way.

But then Ernesto snaps his fingers at his daughter like he’s calling over a dog and says, “Julieta. Ven aquí, por favor.”

Julieta comes, and Ernesto hands over his gun. He does. _Kate’s_ gun is still tucked in his waistband, but he doesn’t touch it.

And then he blinks, and his eyes flash flat yellow, pupils thinning to vertical slits. He smiles, but it’s _not_ a smile, and Kate can’t help it, she cringes like a scared little girl into Seth’s side, and Seth tightens his hold on her thigh and cradles her skull with his other hand, but.

But there’s this noise. Muffled, more a whistle than a blast. Kate doesn’t recognize the sound at first, even though she’s heard it before on TV, but Ernesto’s inhuman eyes go wide. They go wide, and a red stain spreads across his pressed white shirt.

He looks so _surprised_ , it’s almost comical. Like he’s been kicked in the back of the head.

Except he hasn’t.

It takes a minute. Some take longer than others, Kate’s found. Like how Amy still hadn’t disintegrated by the time Seth hauled Kate out of that motel pool. It takes a minute, but Ernesto still crumbles in the end. Just burns out into ashes on the carpet, Kate's Smith & Wesson clattering loose.

Seth and Kate gape at Julieta, standing over the remains of her father with the gun in her hand. She clicks the hammer into place.

Smiles.

“We should talk,” she says.

 

* * *

 

Julieta changes out of her pilfered housekeeping uniform and drives the blue sedan to a panadería fifteen minutes away from the hotel, Seth and Kate following in the Corvette. She orders herself a coffee and a concha, but when she offers to treat Seth and Kate to whatever they want, she’s met with two resounding _nos_.

Julieta shrugs. “Suit yourselves,” she says. “But I’m not gonna poison your food, if that’s what y’all’re worried about. How could I?”

Seth smiles thinly. “For all we know, this place is crawling with snakes just like you, sister.”

Julieta glares. Kate might be imagining it, but she thinks her pupils thin. “It isn’t. Don’t be so paranoid.”

Paranoid. _Paranoid_  is Seth sitting with his gun propped on his thigh beneath the little square table, hammer cocked. His right arm’s resting along the back of Kate’s chair, and Kate might usually find that stifling and _this close_ to possessive, but right now, she just wants to sink into Seth’s side and sleep for about two days.

She can’t, though. Not yet.

Julieta sips her coffee. “I just wanted to thank you. That’s all.”

“Thank us,” Seth echoes flatly. He doesn’t ask for clarification, possibly because he doesn’t want it. Frankly, Kate’s surprised that he agreed to follow Julieta here.

Okay, so maybe he _is_ a little curious. _Kate_ certainly is.

“Yes,” says Julieta. “I’ve been waiting for an opportunity like that for _years_. I’m free now, thanks to you two.”

Kate looks around. The panadería is busy, humming with background noise, but that just means there are more people around who could overhear them. She leans in, feels Seth’s fingers catch in the back of her shirt to hold her back. She tosses a glare his way—he stares back, unrepentant—before turning to Julieta and saying, “They were your _parents_.”

Julieta’s full lips thin. “Mary and Ernesto weren’t my parents. They _stole_ me from my parents. Turned me into this,” she gestures at herself to encompass _this_ , “because _Amy_ wanted a little sister.”

Kate blinks. “Little sister?” Julieta could be in her late teens or early twenties—but that doesn’t mean anything, does it?

“Amy was born in 1971,” says Julieta. “I was born in 1980.”

“You wanted to kill them,” Kate whispers, and Julieta nods.

“Yes. But I couldn’t take all three of them on at once, and I certainly couldn’t run away—they’d just hunt me down. You did me a favor, picking off Amy and Mary like that. I’m grateful, truly.”

“God,” Seth marvels, “and I thought _my_ family was dysfunctional.”

Julieta glares at Seth, and although there’s no trace of change in her face, Kate can see the shadow of a snake lurking in her eyes. “They weren’t my _family_ , pendejo. They were my _captors_.” She looks at Kate. “You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you, Kate?”

Kate feels like she’s been splashed with ice water. “How’d you—”

Julieta holds up a hand. “Please, don’t insult my intelligence. Word of los hermanos Gecko’s exploits at the Titty Twister has already begun to spread. They’ll be telling stories about you for decades.”

“Great.” Seth slumps in his seat. “Just what I wanted: to be inducted into the culebra hall of fame.”

Julieta’s nostrils flare. Turning too-perceptive eyes on Kate, she says, “But I suppose you grew more attached to your captors than I did to mine, going by the smell of you. You reek of Gecko.”

Kate tries not to visibly cringe, and Seth’s jaw clenches. “You shut your fucking mouth about her.”

“Or what?” Julieta asks. “You’ll shoot me under the table like Han fucking Solo?”

Seth bares his teeth. “Don’t tempt me, sweetheart.”

Julieta bares her teeth right back—they look longer than they ought to—and Kate cups Seth’s knee. He meets her eyes, grudgingly, and she shakes her head.

_Don’t._

And, surprisingly, he doesn’t, if only because he doesn’t want to cause a scene and get tagged by the Federal Police.

And, actually—

“Can I ask you something?”

Julieta chews on a bite of concha. Swallows and pats sugar off her lips with a paper napkin. “Go ahead. Like I said: I’m grateful.”

Kate doesn’t want to have this conversation in public, but neither does she want to be alone in _private_ with Julieta, no matter how _grateful_ she claims to be. “You followed my scent to the hotel room, right? Not Seth’s.”

“That’s right.”

Seth can probably see where this is going. “Kate—”

Kate rushes ahead, cutting him off. “Was it because I smell…pure? Will it go away now that I—”

But Julieta’s already shaking her head, and Kate just kind of. Deflates.

Oh. Does it not count unless she goes all the way?

“You know,” Julieta says, “virginity’s bullshit.”

Kate blinks. Stares at Julieta, at the smile spreading across her mouth. It’s her nicest one yet. Kind, almost.

“What?” Julieta shrugs. “It is. Men think they can change something fundamental about a woman just by sticking their dicks in her—Christ. Like I said, it’s a load of bull.”  

Part of Kate wants to squirm, but the rest of her feels—

She doesn’t know.

“So it won’t stop,” Kate says. She can feel Seth looking at her, but she doesn’t turn to try and analyze his expression. “No matter what I do, it won’t—”

“Nah. Sorry.” And, God, but Julieta really _does_ sound sincerely sorry. “Some people, there’s just…something about them.” She looks at Kate’s neck, and Kate flinches and wraps a hand around her throat. “Maybe it’s a spiritual thing, I don’t know. Something in the soul.”

Not at Kate’s neck, then. At her cross.

“So you’re saying—”

“I’m saying you could have a fucking orgy in a church basement, and probably nothing would change. It’s not your virginity, Kate. It’s _you_.”

Kate finally identifies what she’s feeling: a devastating elixir of despair and relief.

Her. It’s _her_. Not her body. Not the things she’s done or watched. God’s still with her.

He’s still with her.

“Great,” Seth says flatly. “Kate’s gonna be primed for virgin sacrifice for the rest of her life. Fan-fucking-tastic. There anything else you wanted? Got more sob stories to tell, or can we leave?”

“You could have left whenever you wanted to.” Julieta’s smile turns a little mean. “I’m not holding you hostage.”

“What about you?” Kate asks, and Seth makes an impatient noise. “Now that you’re free of them, what’re you gonna do?”

Julieta tilts her head, thoughtful. “I dunno.” She smirks. “Take a trip to Wally World, maybe.”

Kate can’t help but smile back.

“Although, you know,” Julieta goes on just as Kate pushes her chair back from the table. “Grateful as I am, I might be more inclined to warn other culebras away from you two if I were compensated for my efforts.”

“You gotta be shitting me,” says Seth. “No way. Fuck off.”

But Kate says, “Deal,” and ignores Seth’s betrayed, pissed-off look. “How much do you want?”

Julieta examines her nails. “Half of whatever you’ve got sounds fair to me. How about you?”

“Absolutely fucking _not_.”

Kate blocks out Seth’s passionate swearing and nods at Julieta. “Deal. But you leave us alone after this. You leave us alone, and you keep the others away.”

Julieta grins toothily. Her incisors are definitely longer than they ought to be. “Vayas con Dios.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: denouement porn. Like, literally so much porn. Send help.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Preacher's daughter strikes again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kate has a dream/nightmare at the beginning of this chapter, and it contains brief (super brief, like it hardly even counts) Kate/Richie and Kate/Santanico. If you'd prefer not to see those pairings even in passing, skip to the first line break, or Ctrl+F search for the first instance of Seth's name.

Kate’s back at the Titty Twister. She doesn’t remember how she got here, but she is. Everything’s streaked in flickering shades of black and red like the inside of a womb, and Santánico Pandemonium is dancing on the table.

Kate’s the only one who’s sitting at the table. That strikes her as odd. She knows that Dad and Scott and the Gecko brothers are around here somewhere, but they’re not within her line of sight. Maybe they’re at the bar, knocking back shots of tequila and trading war stories.

Anyway, the table. The table, and Santánico swaying on top of it. No one else seems to be paying attention to Santánico’s dance despite her being the Twister’s headliner, and that also strikes Kate as odd. But the crowd is faceless, voiceless, oblivious. There’s just Kate and the monster who doesn’t look like a monster.

Santánico bends like a willow, dark curtains of hair sliding over her shoulders to frame her achingly beautiful face, and grazes nails that feel more like claws across Kate’s cheekbones. Kate tilts her head, leaning into the touch even though she knows that she shouldn’t. Even though she knows that to bare her throat is to invite teeth.

Santánico’s thumb rides Kate’s windpipe— _pin her by the throat_ —and Kate’s pulse beats like a drum between her legs. It’s a sweet, wet ache that’s been building for a while now, ever since she noticed Santánico dancing in front of her. And now Santánico falls into a crouch, slim bare feet pointed outwards, knees spread, and breath that Kate can’t feel but still knows is there blows across her lips like a humid wind. She can’t smell it, either, but she knows that if she could, it would stink like blood. That it would reek of slaughterhouse floors.

Kate should probably say something, but she can’t find her voice. Santánico stole it like a sea witch in a fairy tale.

Santánico’s red lips move.

_Cat got your tongue, Katie-cakes?_

No. Not a cat. A viper.

Except it’s not _Santánico_ who’s crouched on the table. It never was. This person is too broad, too pale, pink lips set in a white face. Dark, gelled hair; thick eyebrows; icy blue eyes. No glasses, but he’s still wearing the Bible salesman suit.

Richie.

Richie’s not Santánico, but he’s touching Kate in the exact same places that the culebra queen was touching her. Face, throat, cold leaching from his big hands and digging into her epidermis like frostbite. He tilts his head and presses his mouth to hers, and his lips are cold, too. Cold like a corpse. Cold like the grave.

Richie breaks the kiss, but he’s not Richie anymore. Hazel eyes, olive skin, longer nose. Lips the same dark shade of pink as Kate’s own cunt.

Seth.

It’s Seth, but he’s not crouched on the table like a gargoyle. _Kate’s_ the one who’s on the table, and she’s not crouching, either. She’s supine, and she’s naked. _Naked as a jaybird_ , like her dad would say.

It should bother her, her nudity—and it does, in a fuzzy sort of way. Still, she doesn’t get down from the table.

Seth’s licking tequila off of her—tequila, not whiskey. Somehow, this strikes Kate as an important distinction. It’s tequila, and Seth’s licking it off her red nipples, tipping it into her navel and sucking it back out like he’s sipping from a glass, pouring it onto her abdomen and letting it waterfall down the mound of her pubis and onto the exposed lips of her spread cunt.

Something catches Kate’s eye through the pulsing flashes of black and red. She tilts her head, hair pouring off the edge of the table like a flow of tequila, and meets Julieta’s eyes. She’s dressed like the culebra dancers, dark hair unbound and trailing to her knees like Rapunzel’s. Kate’s pretty sure it wasn’t that long the last time she saw her.

Julieta’s lips form words. Kate can’t hear them, but she can _hear_ them.

_Preacher’s daughter strikes again._

Kate looks away from Julieta, looks down the length of her own body to where Seth kneels on the table between her spread legs. The table shouldn’t be big enough for the both of them, but it is, like it grew while Kate wasn’t watching.

Seth looks back at her, and his eyes flicker, flashing yellow back to hazel back to yellow. He smiles at Kate, and the tips of his fangs dent his full lower lip. They’re long and curved and thick, hard like a clit, hard like a dick.

Kate looks around for Julieta. She’s not there anymore, and then Kate forgets she was ever there at all.

When Seth strikes—when he sinks his hard fangs into Kate’s soft cunt—Kate comes like she’s in her death throes.

 _That’s because you are. That’s because you_ are _._

 

* * *

 

Her cunt’s still pulsing when she wakes up, aftershocks rippling gently through her womb ( _black and red like the inside of a womb_ ). Her toes are hooked against the sagging mattress like she was scrambling for purchase in her sleep, and there’s an unborn sigh caught in her throat. She lets it out, slowly, feeding it through her clenched teeth.

Kate blinks. Scrapes gummy sleep from the corners of her eyes. Stares at the ceiling, at the dark shape of the rotating fan. Keeps on staring at it while she waits for her dream to either clarify in her memory or slip away.

In the end, it clarifies, and then Kate kind of wishes it hadn’t.

The Titty Twister, throbbing with music that Kate couldn’t actually hear. Her unseen father and brother. Santánico, Richie, Julieta, Seth. Long, curved fangs sinking into her wet cunt. Blood gushing out of her body like come.

And she came from that—or at least, she’s pretty sure she did. The lingering throb between her legs is too weak to tell for sure—maybe she came, and maybe she just got turned on. But if she actually _did_ come, it would be a first. She’s never orgasmed in her sleep before that she knows of.

She’s never done a lot of things before.

Seth—the real Seth, the _human_ Seth—grumbles and turns over, and Kate stiffens when the mattress squeals like a dying mouse, but he doesn’t wake up. His breathing stays slow and steady. Kate turns her head and looks at him, rough pillowcase scratching her cheek. Looks at the dark shape of his body, curled beneath their shared blankets.

They’re sleeping in the same bed, but Kate doubts that Seth specifically _requested_ a single when he booked the room. The motel parking lot was full when they got here this afternoon. It’s very likely that they were just out of rooms with two beds.

Seth didn’t want to stay in that city, and neither did Kate. As soon as they were finished with Julieta, he packed Kate and their things into the Corvette and rocketed down the highway, stopping at the first roadside motel they found. They’re back to square one.

At least this place doesn’t have a plastic oasis out front.

Kate stretches her legs and cups herself through her underwear, digging a knuckle against her clit like the pressure might stifle her lingering arousal.

Seth’s pissed at her. He hasn’t yelled at her or anything, but he is. And, you know, for someone who typically seems incapable of shutting up to save his life, he’s really adept at pointed silences and cold shoulders.

Well, whatever. Let him sulk. Kate did what she had to do to protect them, and she’s not going to issue an insincere apology just to smooth Seth’s ruffled feathers.

She’s not.

What she _is_ going to do is change into a fresh pair of underwear. Whether she actually came in her sleep or not, her panties are filmed over with come, sticky and ruined. It’s almost like she wet the bed, just moderately less embarrassing.

Well. Moderately less embarrassing so long as _Seth_ doesn’t find out about it.

Kate sits up slowly, folding back the blankets and touching her feet to the floor. It helps that her side of the mattress is closest to the bathroom and dresser; this way, she won’t have to circle the bed and risk making that much more noise.

Speaking of noise—the dresser drawer squeaks when Kate pulls it open, and she freezes, crouched on the cold floor, ears pricked for any indication that Seth might be waking up. He just keeps breathing in that slow, steady way, though, so Kate gets back on track, grabbing a clean pair of panties and sliding the drawer shut with all the care she might extend towards a live bomb.

Kate makes sure to tug the bathroom door firmly shut before cutting on the lights. She might have forgone the lights entirely, not wanting the yellow glare to sneak under the crack in the door and disturb Seth, but he was facing the other way, last she checked, and she’s not so desperate that she’s willing to risk tripping in the dark and cracking her skull like an egg on the hard floor.

Rucking up her nightshirt, Kate slides her thumbs beneath her panties’ waistband and shimmies them down her legs, shivering when the drafty air crawls up her legs and licks at her naked vulva like a cold tongue. Leaving her soiled underthings in a heap, Kate steps into a fresh pair—

And just about swallows her tongue when the bathroom door swings wide fucking open.

Seth’s leaning against the doorjamb, thumb and forefinger digging at his shut eyes. Then he blinks those eyes open and fixes Kate with a sardonic look.

“Y’know,” he says, “you’re nowhere near as sneaky as you think you are. Take my advice: don’t go into a career as a cat burglar.”

Kate elects to ignore that. Elects to ignore her hammering pulse, too. “ _God. Knock first_ , would you? I could’ve been on the toilet!”

“Yeah, but you weren’t.”

Kate clenches her fists. She opens her mouth to say something—something that would make Scott snicker, probably—but then Seth’s bleary eyes trail away from her face and drift to her right. Focus on the floor.

Abruptly get a whole lot sharper.

_Oh, shit._

Kate doesn’t think, just moves, scrambling to snatch up her panties and tuck them safely behind her back. She’s fairly confident that she’ll get to them before Seth does, even, since she’s closer—but Seth’s _fast_ , faster than _her_ , fast and clever and _mean_ , and Kate’s hands smack against bare tile.

Kate looks up the length of Seth’s body. She doesn’t want to, but she does. Her soiled panties are dangling like a prize from the two longest fingers of his left hand, turned inside out so the crotch is on display, shiny with the film of Kate’s maybe-orgasm.

_I see London, I see France, I see Katie’s underpants._

“Why, Katie.” Seth’s smile cuts into his cheeks, and it’s definitely mean. Not just teasing. _Mean_. “Have you been jerking off?”

Kate flushes, then flushes even _harder_ when she realizes that she’s practically kneeling at Seth’s feet. She stands up so fast it makes her dizzy, then snaps, “Of course not. Give those back.”

Seth doesn’t give them back, because of course he doesn’t. He twirls them around his fingers like a toy, and says, thoughtfully, “Maybe that’s not it. Maybe you had a wet dream, huh? Went off in your sleep, maybe? That’s nothing to be ashamed of. Hell, we’ve all been there. It’s totally natural.”

Jesus, but he really is a _fucking_ bastard after all. “I _said_ , give them _back_.” Kate goes to snatch her underwear out of Seth’s hand, only for him to hold them high over his head like a bully taunting a smaller kid in the schoolyard, arm stretched to its full length.

And, look. Seth’s not that tall, but he’s tall _enough_. Taller than _her_. No matter how high Kate strains onto her tiptoes, she still can’t quite reach, and, what do you know, all this struggling has brought their bodies into close proximity. The heat that comes off of Seth like a furnace sinks into Kate’s stomach, into the cradle of her hips. Her _hips_ , which are lined up with his like they’re dancing. Seth exhales, and his chest brushes her nipples through their shirts. Her nipples, which have wound up hard and tight.

Kate swallows convulsively. Takes a giant step back—retreating, she’s _retreating_ —and crosses her arms over her breasts.

Mustering up her best Big Sister Voice, Kate says, “You’re being really juvenile, you know that?”

“I know you are but what am I?”

Kate wants to _hit him_. The impulse shakes her, _disturbs_ her. She fists her shaking hands against her forearms and scowls at the cruddy tile floor.

And then Seth fucking _devastates_ her with one question. “Were you dreaming about me, Katie?”

Kate’s head snaps up, mouth working soundlessly. No, not _soundlessly_. There’s a wheeze of air like a tire losing pressure, and then she’s choking out, “How _arrogant_ can you _get_ —”

Seth’s not smiling anymore. No, he’s dead serious. “Well, _were_ you?”

Kate’s face crumples like she’s gonna cry, cheeks burning. She supposes that’s answer enough, because Seth nods, slowly, and says, “Was it a _good_ dream?”

As if the film on her panties hasn’t already answered _that_ question, except, actually, _good_ isn’t the right word for it. Intense, sure. Moderately disturbing, definitely. But _good_?

Seth’s not letting it go. His bare feet whisper across the floor. The heat pouring off of him digs into Kate’s skin like Richie’s cold had during her dream. “You wanna tell me what I was doing to you in your dream?”

No. No, she definitely does _not_.

“C’mon, Katie. Share with the class.”

 _Share with the class_. Hasn’t he said that to her before?

“Kate—”

Jesus Christ Almighty, she just wants him to _shut the hell up_ —

Kate’s arms uncoil. Her hands wrap around Seth’s ears, tugging, dragging his _stupid face_ down to hers so she can sink her teeth into his lower lip like she’s biting into a slice of fresh fruit. Like how _he_ bit _her_ in her dream.

Seth makes a noise that buzzes against Kate’s lips. Shock, maybe. Arousal, possibly. Regardless, the next thing Kate hears is the slither of fabric on tile as Seth drops her underwear and clenches his fingers around her waist, _hauling_ her up and into him, dragging her flush with all that hard muscle. Kate tilts back her head, stretching out Seth’s lower lip until he makes another noise—pain or arousal, pain or arousal—and then she frees it with a pop and watches it snap into place like rubber, all swollen up from the pressure of her teeth. Swollen up like a _cunt_ , and Kate reels with shock at having had a thought like that at all.

He’s done this to her. Him.

Seth blinks, rapid fire like he’s been concussed. His pupils are certainly dilated enough to make a case for it. He says, voice gone all scratchy, “I’m still pissed at you, you know.”

Kate licks the taste of him off her lips. “I did what I had to. I’m not gonna apologize. If I did, it would be a lie.”

Seth shrugs, hands flexing on Kate’s waist. “Fair enough,” he allows, like he’s too turned on to hold onto his anger, at least in this moment. “After all, lying’s a sin.”

“You want me to confess again?” Kate asks him, and wonders, abruptly, if he was raised Catholic. If he had someone in his life who dragged him to confession and locked him in a dark box with a bored priest so he could rattle off petty sins like shoving his brother or sticking gum in a classmate’s hair.

“I dunno, Katie.” Seth’s lips stretch into a smile, too soft for mean but too sharp to be anything but teasing. His hands drag up her waist and wrap around her back, thumbs framing her aching breasts. “You got anything you wanna confess to?”

Kate wraps her hands as far as they’ll go around Seth’s thick biceps, hooks her fingers in the straps of his white undershirt. “Yeah. I do.”

Seth’s already lowering his head. Slow, teasing. Always _teasing_. “And what would that be?”

“I think you know,” Kate says, and lifts up on her toes to kiss him.

He was almost gentle with her, that first time. He isn’t now. Maybe it’s because he’s still a little pissed at her. Maybe it’s because he’s less afraid of scaring her off after everything they’ve already done together. Whatever his reasoning, his kiss is worlds rougher than it ever was before, giving Kate the edge of teeth—blunt, not fangs, _not fangs_ —working her mouth open with his tongue and stretching her jaw so wide it aches, like he’s trying to see if there’s enough room inside of it for his _dick_.

Would he want her to do that for him? Probably he would. Most guys do, from what she understands. But does _she_ want to do it for him?

She’s not sure.

But what she _is_ sure of is that she wants to get closer. She’s sure that she wants to crawl inside of Seth and _stay there_. She can’t do that, but she can roll her tongue around his mouth and drag it against his hard teeth. She can snarl her fingers in his short hair—she’s rougher this time, too—and drag back his head and _bite him on the throat_.

Seth’s hips fuck forward, dick prodding Kate’s stomach, and then he grabs hold of her ass with both hands, fingers dipping into the crease of it. At first, Kate figures that he’s just trying to feel her up, but, no, he’s boosting her into his arms, fast giddy tilt like a thrill ride, and then he’s depositing her on the edge of the faux-marble counter and pushing into the space between her sprawling legs.

He pulls away a little, then, but not far. Just far enough to look at her, lashes trembling as his eyes flick from her face to her throat and back again. He cups her face in his big hands, thumbs sliding through the saliva that’s smeared all over her mouth and chin like poorly applied lipstick. His dick twitches against the seam of Kate’s inner thigh, warm and heavy and _thick_ and nowhere near close enough to where she needs him to be.

Kate makes a decision, then, makes it and commits to it before she can chicken out and change her mind. She wriggles in place, brushing Seth’s hands aside so she can get at the hem of her nightshirt and tug it over her head. It tightens around her neck like a noose and makes her hair crackle with static, but it comes off. It comes off, and Kate tosses it aside and leans back on her palms and lets Seth _look_ at her in the harsh glare of the ugly fluorescent lights. Lets him look and fights not to cross her arms over her body.

Seth leans back, too, torso tilting away from Kate’s even as the motion pushes his hips snug with hers and drags his dick across her crotch—God, _Jesus_ —the better to get a proper look at her. And his face. God, his face.

Kate has no words for what she sees in Seth’s face.

“God, honey.” Seth’s fingers graze Kate’s throat, her breasts—tracking the hickeys he left on her, Kate realizes. “Just fucking _look_ at you.”

Kate bites her lip, drops her eyes, and Seth tucks his fingers under her chin and makes her look him in the face. “Hey. What’d I tell you?”

He’s told her a lot of things, but in this instance, Kate can narrow it down. “That I don’t. That I don’t have to worry about disappointing you.”

“No, you sure as fuck do _not_.” Seth burrows his face in Kate’s throat, knocking her head gently aside to make room, and latches onto the crook of her neck with lips and teeth, sucking new bruises to overlap the old ones. Just like the last time, Kate _swears_ that she can feel the suction directly on her clit—and now that she _knows_ what it feels like for Seth to _actually suck on her clit_ , it’s that much more intense. And she knows that she physically can’t come from just this, but for a split second, as the slow pulse between her legs quickens to a jackhammer’s pace, she swears that she just might.

If anyone on God’s green Earth could do that to her, it’d be Seth Gecko.

Seth Gecko, who’s following the path of old bruises, baring his teeth against Kate’s skin and sucking through them, sucking at sore patches of skin and making them ache so sweetly that Kate grunts like she’s dying ( _comes like she’s in her death throes_ ). Her back arches, and Seth’s hand comes up to cradle her skull and keep it from colliding with the mirror. Kate clings to him, panting, but, no. Last time, she mostly just sat there and took it, nerves and inexperience stilling her hands, but not this time. This time, she’s gonna touch him back.

She’s going to get to _see_ him.

So she sets about making that a reality, nudging Seth gently back—gently, so he doesn’t think she’s rejecting him—and hooking her fingers in his undershirt.

Seth laughs under his breath. “Oh, I get it. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours, huh?”

“Don’t ruin it,” says Kate, and Seth just smiles, lifting his arms above his head to help her get the shirt off of him, and Jesus.

It’s possible that Kate’s mouth actually drops open, and she really, _really_ doesn’t wanna feed Seth’s already inflated ego, but, _God_. No one should look this good under fluorescent lights. How is this fair? _How is it fair?_ Looking at Seth makes Kate want to shield herself with her arms all over again, but she doesn’t.

Because Seth wouldn’t want her to. Seth seems to genuinely _like_ the way Kate looks—and for all the things he’s done to her, he’s never lied to her, not once—so she just needs to focus on that. She needs to work on seeing herself the way _Seth_ sees her.

She can’t, though, not quite yet, so she focuses on Seth instead. She claws her fingers and trails her nails down his firm pectorals; and then lower still to his flat, ridged stomach, fascinated by the way his skin twitches. Even more fascinated by the sound he makes, not quite a whimper but maybe, just _maybe_ , getting there.

Kate tilts her head. “Are you ticklish?”

Seth squints at her, then wraps his hands around her waist and digs in with his fingers until she squirms and giggles. _Goddammit._ “Nah,” he drawls. “But _you_ sure as hell are, aren’t you, princess?”

Distraction. Kate needs a distraction _right this second_ , so she does the first thing that occurs to her: she grabs Seth’s wrist and drags his hand between her legs, drags his fingers across the lips of her cunt through her damp underwear—what _even_ was the point of changing them in the first place—and Seth makes a noise halfway between a laugh and a hiss.

“So it’s gonna be like _that_ , huh?” Seth angles his thumb and rubs it almost _too_ gently against Kate through her underwear, the drag of cotton on her wet clit coming _this close_ to unbearable.

Kate’s lips wobble into a weak smile. “Preacher’s daughter strikes again,” she whispers, mouth running ahead of her brain, and for a second, she’s afraid that she messed up by invoking that memory, by talking about his brother even implicitly. But Seth just smirks at her, wicked tilt of his mouth, and pulls his thumb away from Kate’s clit only to push past her waistband and stroke the pad of his index finger across it.

Yeah, he’s definitely still pissed at her. He’s got to be, because the way he’s touching her—it’s not enough. Don’t get her wrong, it feels _fucking amazing_ , but his touch is too light, too soft. Teasing. He strums at Kate’s clit until her hips start to rock back and forth, until she’s all but humping his hand, gets her dripping wet all over the counter, but he doesn’t make her come. He doesn’t.

Frustration catches in Kate’s throat, tries to manifest itself as a scream. “ _Seth_ —can’t you just—”

Seth kisses her cheek, her throat, sucks her earlobe between his teeth before releasing it with a pop. “Just what? Huh, sweetheart? What d’you want? I’ll give you anything you want, baby girl, but you gotta ask. C’mon, Katie. Just ask.”

Ask. She should be able to do that. With the way she’s feeling, it should be easy, anything to soothe the ache in her pounding cunt. _Please_ , fuck, just—

Seth’s fingers leave her clit, ease into her cunt and stretch her out like elastic, and it feels _good_ , but it isn’t where she _needs_ him. She needs him to touch her clit. She needs him to make her _come_.

She’s saying it out loud. She is. The words are tumbling off her tongue without her say-so, squeezed out between unsteady gulps for air. “Make me come, make me come, _Seth_ , c’mon, make me come, make me come, I wanna _come_.”

“ _Jesus_ ,” says Seth, and he sounds like he’s being choked. “That’s fuckin’ beautiful.” He drags his fingers out of her constricting cunt, spreads all that slick around her clit and grinds his calluses against her. Tension heats up in Kate’s pelvis, spooling like thread ready to snap. “C’mon, sweetheart, you can come, I know you can, come the fuck _on_.”

And like a thread twined too tight around a flexing finger, Kate _does_ snap. Bursts out of her own skin, bursts wet between her legs, dripping come all over Seth’s hand as her cunt collapses in on itself. Her head goes limp against Seth’s shoulder as she shudders through it, and all she can think is, _Oh, God. Jesus God._

She’s never gonna get used to this. Never.

Seth threads his fingers in her hair and eases her head off his shoulder, drops a kiss onto her slack mouth. Kate returns the kiss as best she can, but it’s not all she wants to return. To reciprocate.

She wants to do for him what she didn’t get to do the last time. Wants to do for him what he’s done for _her_.

Kate drags her hand down Seth’s ridged abdomen, making him twitch again—not ticklish, her _ass_ —and just. Cups him through his sweatpants. Traces the shape of his dick with her fingers, bringing her palm flush with the shaft, feeling it twitch.

“Let me,” Kate mumbles thickly, kissing Seth’s mouth so he can’t see her blush, can’t see how nervous this is making her. “C’mon, Seth, let me.”

“ _Jesus_ ,” Seth grunts, fucking shamelessly into Kate’s hand, overflowing her palm. “Twist my arm.” And he shimmies his pants down his legs, lets them drop around his ankles and steps out of them, kicks them aside. He’s—

Beautiful, Kate realizes. Not just attractive. Not just unfairly good looking. He’s so beautiful it almost hurts to look at him.

Except she’s gonna do a hell of a lot more than _look_.

But, looking. She’s doing a lot of that, too. At Seth’s sharp hipbones; at the pair of thick veins that cut through his abdomen and feed into his pelvis, into his dick. His dick, curving towards his stomach, so intimidatingly _thick_ that part of Kate just wants to laugh hysterically and walk out of the room. His dick, flushed a red so deep it’s nearly purple, like Kate’s hickeys, like the strangulation bruises on his throat. It’s wet, too, like Kate’s wet. Hard, like her clit is hard, skin stretched tight, blue-green veins throbbing.

Kate drags her eyes away from Seth’s dick and heroically looks him in the face. A smirk’s lingering on his mouth, but his eyes are almost _concerned_. Like he’s worried he’ll scare her, that she’ll bolt.

Kate licks her lips. “Isn’t this the part where you tell me that it doesn’t bite?”

The smirk cracks open into a true grin. “Guess it is,” he says, and takes her hand. Takes it and drags it towards his dick as he shuffles closer, cockhead bumping her inner thigh and smearing precome across her skin. “C’mere, baby.”

Seth licks her palm, curls his tongue around her fingers, and then he wraps her wet hand around his dick, dragging it up and down, squeezing gently to indicate that he wants her to tighten up. She does, and he sighs. Kate runs her thumb across a thick vein, and the sigh stutters, edges into a moan.

“ _Sweetheart_.” He nips her chin, runs his teeth across her lower lip. “The shit I’m gonna teach you.”

A jolt of arousal kicks Kate directly in the cunt. _The shit I’m gonna teach you._ She wants to find out. She wants to find out _right now_ —

She lets go of Seth’s dick only to wrestle off her panties and kick them to the floor. She spreads her legs as wide as they’ll go, spreads them until her muscles burn, and hooks them around Seth’s hips to pull him in. She braces her hands on the counter and slicks her pussy lips up his shaft, makes herself moan, but then Seth grabs her hips and holds her still.

“Kate,” he grunts, “you better quit that shit if you don’t want me to go off early and embarrass us both.”

_I’ll give you anything you want, but you gotta ask._

What she wants. What she _wants_.

“ _Seth_.” Kate digs her nails into the wings of Seth’s shoulder blades, making him arch into her when she drags them down his spine. The words that were stuck in her throat come crawling out. “I want you to—God, just. _Fuck me_.”

Seth’s dick jerks against her thigh, pulsing like he really _might_ go off early, but the rest of him goes still as petrified stone. He rears back, digs into her with his eyes. His jaw works.

“You mean that,” he says. It’s not a question.

Kate nods. It’s tentative, but not because she’s having second thoughts.

Seth frames her face with his hands, rakes his fingers through her tangled hair. “ _You mean that_ ,” he repeats, and Kate swear that his voice cracks just a little. She nods again, firmer this time.

She does. She does mean it. Not because she’s trying to get rid of something. Not because she doesn’t want to die. Even if her so-called _purity_ was tied to her body and her body _only_ , that still wouldn’t be what’s motivating her.

Seth groans, drops his forehead against Kate’s. It’s burning up like he’s got a fever. “Shit. _Fuck_. I haven’t had the chance to pick up any condoms. Jesus fuckin’ _Christ_ —”

“It’s okay,” Kate blurts, and Seth rears back again, his expression less intense and more nonplussed. “I—I’m sorry, I’m not on the pill or anything because I—you know I never—and I. I trust you.”

 _Oh my God_ , a very distant part of Kate thinks. _What is_ wrong _with you?_ Because, sexually transmitted diseases aside, there’s the very real possibility of Kate getting pregnant from this, and Jesus. She doesn’t even want to _contemplate_ that. If she ever entertained the vague notion of having kids one day, _years_ from now, that path is now closed to her. She can’t bring a bouncing baby _Gecko_ of all things into this life of theirs, and she doesn’t want to.

Still.

“You trust me,” Seth echoes, mouth twisting sardonically, and, yeah. Kate’s well aware of the irony, but she does.

He’s all she has left, and she _does_.

“Yeah,” says Kate, recklessly putting all her concerns aside to be dealt with later—much, _much_ later. “You don’t have to tell me that’s stupid. I already know it is.” And before Seth can bite off a snappy retort, Kate grabs his dick—it jumps in her hand—and rubs the head against her clit, rubs until the tingle turns into a buzz, as intense as pins-and-needles. “C’mon, Seth, _please_.”

“Jesus Christ,” says Seth, but not like he’s annoyed with her. If anything, he sounds kind of helpless, kind of wrecked. “Alright, just—slow your roll for a second, fuck.” Seth eases back, hand curling around the base of his dick like he’s trying to hold in an orgasm—and maybe he is—and says, “Put your feet up on the edge of the counter. C’mon, like this.”

And he shows her what to do, grabbing her calf with his free hand and pushing it up until her heel is propped on the counter. Kate does the same with her other leg under her own power, spreading herself wide, spreading her _cunt_ wide. Opening herself up for him.

Seth licks his lips, gives his dick an idle tug. “Good girl,” he says, and Kate doesn’t try to hide the pleased little shiver this time around. He’s already made her beg for him, so what’s the point? “Now hold onto the counter with both hands, c’mon. Good. Jesus, that’s perfect.”

Kate holds onto the slick counter. She does, and when Seth steps in close, a nervous thrill shoots up her spine like a trail of lightning. Because maybe virginity’s bullshit after all, maybe it’s just a social construct, but the fact remains that she’s never done this before. It’s still her _first time_. Virginity might not exist, but first times definitely do.

Seth’s free hand wraps around Kate’s hip, squeezes, strokes. “Shh, that’s it. That’s it, baby. Just hold yourself open for me, alright? Swear to God I’m gonna make it good for you, Katie. I’m gonna make it so goddamn good.”

If he were anybody else, Kate might scoff at his arrogance, but he’s _already_ made it good for her. He’s made it so good.

And it’s gonna get better.

Kate nods. Meets Seth’s eyes and smiles, and he kisses her, sticky and lingering—but then he wraps his fingers around her chin and tilts her head down, points her eyes at the humid space between their hips, to the dick he’s rubbing against her tingling clit in agonizing little circuits.

He wants her to watch. He wants her to watch him fuck her.

Just as well. Kate doesn’t think she could look away if she tried.

“You gonna let me in this tight little pussy, sweetheart? Gonna let me fuck you?”

Kate moans wordlessly, helplessly, pussy clenching like a fist. She nods, keeps nodding until Seth lines himself up and starts easing inside.

The first push is shallow, more of a nudge than anything, and it certainly goes no further than his fingers already have. Less, even. But shallow as it is, it’s still so much _more_ than his fingers, because no matter how deep _they_ went, even the pair of them together weren’t this _thick_. A noise wheezes out of Kate’s throat, more nerves than pain—because it doesn’t hurt, it really doesn’t—but Seth still stops. Rubs her hip almost frantically.

“You doing okay, honey?”

He’s checking on her. That’s nice of him. Considerate, and remarkably selfless for such a fundamentally _selfish_ person. But, _okay_. Is she doing okay? Again, that word doesn’t do any of what she’s feeling justice. She’s losing her virginity—or whatever—in a motel bathroom to an older man she doesn’t really know all that well, even though it feels like she _does_ , and.

And she wants him to keep going. She wants him to keep going, so she peels one hand off the counter and grabs Seth’s ass, tries to nudge him forward. He hisses and pushes back against her, though, dragging his dick out of her with a wet pop.

“ _Hey_. You trying to hurt yourself or something? _Jesus_.”

“Is it _supposed_ to hurt?” Kate challenges. She’s heard plenty of horror stories, but those books she snuck made it sound like it wasn’t supposed to.

Seth squints at her, pissy, but he takes hold of his dick and nudges it between her spread lips, edges inside. “No, it’s not. But it just might anyway if you don’t _slow the fuck down_.”

Kate almost wants to laugh, because she _can’t believe_ that they’re actually _bickering_ while he’s _literally inside of her_. Then again, she _can_ believe it. It seems pretty in-character.

She doesn’t laugh, though, and she doesn’t snipe at him. She just nods her head and lets go of his ass, returns her hand to the counter and _grips_. Seth rubs her hip and goes back to inching into her, and Kate goes back to watching. Watching, and feeling.

Kate doesn’t have the vocabulary for what she’s feeling, so she tries to put words to what she’s _seeing_ : Seth, thick and dark, working his slow way inside of her. The flushed lips of her cunt visible through her pubic hair, stretching open around him like a waiting mouth. Stretching wider than she imagined they could have—which is stupid. If her body can squeeze out a baby, in theory, then it can certainly take _him_.

But. Still.

And, feeling. Okay, fine, she’ll try to put words to what she’s feeling, too. There’s Seth, throbbing and twitching like he had in her hand, pulsing with the blood that stretches his skin taut. He’s smooth and wet, and _she_ just keeps getting wetter around him. But when he’s almost all the way in, prying her so wide that her muscles burn and her eyes sting, her body just clamps up.

Seth makes a noise like he’s dying and latches onto Kate’s hips with both hands. His hands, and they’re shaking. _He’s_ shaking, fine tremors that quiver in his stomach, pressed nearly flushed with hers now.

“Baby— _fuck_. You gotta relax.”

“I _am_ relaxed,” Kate says through her teeth, and she thinks, _C’mon, just—_

And she goes loose, and Seth bottoms out with a wet slide, and Kate’s head kicks back on her neck, mouth dropping open.

Jesus. Jesus, there really _aren’t_ any words.

“ _Fuck_.” Seth drops his sweaty forehead into the sweatier crook of Kate’s shoulder. “Jesus Christ. Gonna squeeze my brains out through my goddamn dick, swear to God.”

 _Now_ Kate laughs, and Seth twitches inside of her. “That’s okay,” she breathes, clenching her muscles just to hear Seth make that dying noise again. “You never used ’em much, anyways.”

Seth lifts his head and glares at her. “Ha, ha,” he says flatly. “You better watch your mouth, princess. You piss me off too much, I just might walk away, and _then_ what’ll you do?”

Kate clenches up again, watches Seth’s face flicker with something sweeter than agony. “I got fingers,” she says, and she’s only teasing, but then Seth starts to pull out, and Kate scrambles to grab at him and hold him to her—

But then he knocks his hips forwards and pushes back into her, hard, and Kate’s world funnels down to the friction of Seth’s dick inside of her and the sticky-wet stretch of her cunt around him.

“Fingers, huh?” Seth drawls, and Kate realizes that she _whimpered_. Shit.

“Just.” Her hands smooth up and down his biceps, clinging to his arms the way her cunt clings to his dick. “Shut _up_ , for once.”

“Nah.” Seth pulls out slow and fucks back in fast, and Kate grunts and _writhes_ on the edge of the counter. “I don’t think you _really_ want me to do that. I think you _like_ it when I talk.”

Kate plants her face against his shoulder, licks the salt off his skin. Shakes her head _no_ even as she tightens around him on the next downstroke.

“Uh-uh. Don’t lie to me, baby. You _like_ being talked through it, don’t you? Yeah, I think you fucking do. Like hearing me tell you how good you are. Like hearing me talk about this sweet little pussy, and, baby, I can’t believe you’re letting me be the first one to fuck it. You’re gonna let me fuck it again, aren’t you? Gonna let me stretch it out? Huh?”

Kate grunts and flexes around him, shudders through a little spasm that’s not quite an orgasm but close, so close, and Seth’s hips stutter for a second before falling back into that smooth, easy rhythm. Too easy. Too _slow_ , and Kate should _want_ it slow, should want it _sweet_ , but she’s thrashing on the edge of the counter, hips stuttering restlessly with no real rhythm, just seeking hunger, trying to swallow Seth whole.

“Fuck.” Seth pulls out of her, dick shiny with her come, and threads his fingers through her hair, pointing her face downward like she wasn’t already looking. “You see that? You see that, sweetheart? See how wet you’re getting me?”

Another spasm rocks through Kate’s pussy, and she shoves her hips forward, trying to engulf him, but he won’t let her. _He won’t let her_.

“You wanna come again, baby? You wanna get me wetter? Gonna come all over my dick, aren’t you? Aren’t you?”

She can’t come on his dick if he doesn’t _give her_ his dick, and the shock of that thought hits her like an open palm on her clit, makes her shudder all over. God. _God_ , who even knew this kind of thing was in her—

Seth latches onto her hips and lifts her off the counter, sets her down on her feet and spins her around. Presses his open palm against the base of her spine to tilt her forward, to _bend her in half_ , and then he’s fucking back into her. Making her rock forward on her toes so she has to slap her hands down on the counter to keep her forehead from colliding with the mirror.

_The mirror._

Kate gets a flash of it—her, bent in half with her hair in her eyes, Seth looming behind her—before burying her face in her folded arms with a groan, pushing her ass flush with Seth’s working hips. She can’t watch this. She can’t look at her face while he does this to her. _She can’t_.

She can feel it, though. She can feel everything. Seth’s hands close around her hips, hold her still while he fucks her, fucks her so deep she can feel it in her _throat_ , rocking her back and forth on her toes, getting her wetter and wetter around his dick until she’s surprised she’s not dripping all over the _floor_. And then his thumbs dig into her ass cheeks, pulling, spreading, spreading her open so he can—oh, Jesus, so he can _watch himself fuck her_ —

But then one hand smooths over her hip, cups her crotch, fingers circling her fat, straining clit, and—

“One day, baby.” Seth’s mouth at her ear, close so she can hear his voice over the obscene smack of skin on skin, the dirty glide of his thick cock in her clenching pussy. “We’re gonna get you on the pill, and then I’m gonna come in this pussy. Gonna come in this pussy and eat it all right outta you. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Huh?”

Kate seizes up, cunt spasming, flexing through an orgasm so intense it’s almost _painful_ , and Seth tangles his free hand in her hair and yanks her head back on her neck, points her face at the mirror. She wants to screw her eyes shut, but then Seth says, “C’mon, baby. Watch. Watch us. Look at how fuckin’ gorgeous you are.”

 _Gorgeous_. Is that what Seth sees? What Kate sees is her face, warped with something like agony, mouth slack, breasts jiggling, cross swinging like a pendulum from her neck. And Seth, Seth curved over her, rocking her forward with every hard push of his hips, sweat dripping down his neck and chest, jaw clenched, long lashes fluttering.

Gorgeous.

Kate collapses onto her pillowed arms, shuddering through the aftershocks, and Seth lets her. He lets her, and he keeps fucking her until _he_ seizes up, swearing, and pulls out of her pussy only to funnel his wet dick through the crack of her ass and come in a thick, sticky spill across the small of her back.

Kate’s frankly surprised when they don’t both go oozing to the floor. She knows that her legs are still attached to her body in theory, but they might as well not be there at all, because she can’t even feel them.

Seth braces his hands on the counter and straightens up, soft dick dragging across Kate’s ass cheek, and the sound he makes is half a laugh, half a groan. “Jesus. Got my fuckin’ come all over you. Fuck, that’s definitely one for the spank bank.”

Kate wrinkles her nose. “Gross.”

Seth laughs again, softly, and grabs a towel off the rack to wipe first her and then himself clean. Then he wraps his arms around Kate’s middle and kisses her neck.

“You love it.”

And you know what? She kind of does.

 

* * *

 

The radio’s playing a song that her parents used to love— _tie a yellow ribbon ’round the ole oak tree, it’s been three long years, do you still want me?_ —and Kate has no idea where Seth is taking her. He’s been uncharacteristically tight lipped, just telling her to put on something nice and refusing to budge whenever she asks him where they’re going.

He can’t be taking her to a fancy restaurant for an expensive dinner. There aren’t any fancy restaurants in the vicinity, for one thing. And it’s still morning, for another.

But then Seth eases the Corvette down a side road and pulls up in front of a white stucco building with a cross rising from its turquoise roof, and Kate knows.

Seth gets out of the car first, circling the hood to open Kate’s door for her. He wraps his arm around her waist, cupping her hip firmly—and, yes, _possessively._ With his free hand, he scrubs at the nape of his neck.

Nervous. He’s _nervous_.

“Hey, so. I know that you’re a Baptist or whatever. And I know this place is Catholic, but a church is a church, right? I figured it wouldn’t make much of a difference.”

Kate just stares—first at the church, and then at Seth. He squints at her through his shades. Digs his fingers a little harder into her hip.

“Well?”

Kate looks back to the church. She considers teasing Seth, considers asking him if he wants to take her to confession, but she can’t get the words out.

A church is a church. A house of God is a house of God, and when Kate shuts her eyes and lets herself _feel_ , she can sense her parents’ love like a warm hand on top of her head.

She can feel the presence of God.

“There a problem?”

Kate opens her eyes. She smiles at Seth, and he smiles back.

He really is beautiful.

“No,” says Kate. “It’s perfect.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some closing notes: 
> 
> 1) You very likely knew this, but "Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Ole Oak Tree" is about a guy who just got out of the clink.
> 
> 2) I like this sandbox and I'd like to keep playing in it. I've already outlined a short (God, please let it be short) smutty Seth/Kate thing, and I've tentatively mapped out a longer AU fic that's sure to drive me slowly up the goddamn wall. 
> 
> 3) One of these days I'm gonna write something _truly_ disgusting, and then you'll all be sorry. 
> 
> 4) Thanks for reading ❤️


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